The series concept is that each book will tell the legend of
the beginning of various Guardians of Childhood: the Man in the Moon, Santa
Claus, the Easter Bunny, etc. This
first book, as you might have guessed, tells the story of St. Nick (and also
the Man in the Moon), but you won’t recognize anything from other traditional stories
you’ve heard. As the inside
flap says, “Here, in this first in a series of epic Guardian adventures, meet
the legendary St. Nick. You’ve
known about him for years, but, it turns out, you don’t really know him at
all…”
The story opens with a classic tale of good versus evil as
the Nightmare King (evil, obviously) escapes from his state of frozen paralysis
and also releases the spectral boy with his crystal dagger, powered by
moonbeams (good). Meanwhile, in
the peaceful, isolated Siberian town of Santoff Claussen, a kind and powerful
wizard named Ombric senses that something bad has happened and hastens to
protect the people of his village.
Through a dream, he summons Nicholas St. North, a notorious bandit, to
help him. An epic battle ensues.
This is a fast-paced adventure story, full of imagination
and fantasy, though it never did fully connect the St. Nick we know today with
these early events that obviously helped to point him in that direction
(perhaps the story will continue in one of the sequels). I’m not familiar with Geringer but know
that William Joyce is well known for his very creative stories, like George
Shrinks, A Day with Wilbur
Robinson (made into the movie Meet
the Robinsons), and my family’s favorite, Dinosaur
Bob.
This new middle-grade series has all the originality and imagination of
those picture books and is illustrated by Joyce’s fanciful
“illuminations.” It’s sure to be a
hit with kids who enjoy action and fantasy.
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