Review: Hodge Podge  of Fact and Borrowed Fiction w/ a Mixed Bag of Illustrations.
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 12 12, 2012
This book is a collection.  It includes the same information as "Santa Through the Years" books 1-5.When I read a children's book, I look at originality, theme (and did they keep to it), lesson (would a child learn the intended lesson), for pre elementary I look for large bold illustrations.  Easy to read and recite language.While reviewing,Santa and His Reindeer - Book 4 (Santa Through the Years),  the author commented the following "I found these lovely old pictures and wanted to use them to tell the Santa stories all in one place.".  I do not have an issue that she found some lovely old fashioned Santa Claus illustrations, which had probably been postcards or Christmas Cards.  My issue is that not all of the illustrations "fit" the story as she is telling it.  Then to fill in she would mix style of illustrations: clip art, cartoon, silhouette, sketches and even a photograph.  Some are exquisitely detailed while some are so simple as to look like coloring book pages.The other issue I had was that she did not create her own story, actually the book isn't a story, but a series of factoids. As she stated in her comment "Of course, I didn't want to confuse children who might have read other stories. I simply retold the story in my own words, inventing a lot of new "facts" I knew children would love.".  In the previous books she had not even acknowledged that parts of her book came from "Twas the Night Before Christmas" by Clement C. Moore and some came from  "Rudolph" which was created by Robert L. May and put to music by Johnny Marks originally for the Montgomery Ward Company. My main issue with this "retelling" is that parts of the book are written as if it is a treatise on Santa Claus, telling about St. Nicholas and that Elves are from Finland.  But then the author brings in the above mentioned fictional works and uses the information in them as if they were facts.At least in this book she has given both of the above credit on the copyright page.  However, she also uses information from the animated "Santa Claus is Coming to Town", which is not acknowledged.When I got to the rumors portion of this book I kind of cringed at the thought that a baby would be born with a white beard saying HO HO HO or that the poor elves had to use gift wrapping for bed sheets.When I arrived at the "Christmas and Santa Today" section the first thing I saw was "All the world is happy at Christmastime.".  Although that would be a lovely thought and I realize young children don't need to be told that not everyone has a happy Christmas.  I feel that statement is totally unnecessary as well as a lie.  There is a statement about snowman that is jarring and doesn't fit the theme of the series.So if you want a hodge podge of a variety of styles of illustrations, mixed with some fact and some borrowed fiction, with some strange questions to make this "interactive" then buy the book.If you want something that is original and follows a theme.  Look elsewhere.