A beautiful imagining of Santa Claus’ life and origin. Rich in folklore and magic it is a beautiful innocent story that helps children believe in something good. ( )

A cute series of explanations for Christmastime traditions with a mythological history of Santa Claus. Like Tolkien with his mythology for England, Baum devises a clever backstory for Claus, weaving in the beginnings of his toymaking, chimney-crawling, and more. Not a crazy yarn being spun here, but it’s fun to see Baum’s work to craft a coherent fantasy world narrative out of the Santa Claus legend. ( )

A fantastical and interesting take on the Santa Claus myth. ( )

Received from Early Readers program.
This is a Santa Claus origin story from the author of the OZ books L. Frank Baum. It is a very quaint little book and has some very sweet little fantasy elements. Would be a good little series of bedtime stories for young children leading up to Christmas. It is a little dated but not too much, and I enjoyed reading it. ( )

After reading all of the Oz books, it's nice to read Baum's other works as well. Not only for the fact they are imaginative for his time, but also you can clearly see he created a universe with most of his books. Yes, this book does connect ith his Oz books, because in a later Oz book he uses this Santa Claus.

The other thing I like about this book is this is Baum's version for the origin of Santa Claus. This is mostly pagan views of Santa and Christmas which is a little interesting knowing that he was Protestant, yet not supersizing since he was simply writing a book for children to enjoy. When I say pagan too it just has that feel, religion is mostly absent in this story.

This is, like most of Baum's works, a quick and easy read. It's perfect for right around Christmas too. Not all that, the message is clear, if Santa Clause had it his way all the children in the world would be happy. ( )