Hannah’s favorite part about Christmas is decorating the tree with Mommy, whose red and silver aesthetic looks like it belongs in a Marshall Field’s window display right along State Street. Jack is more impressed with Santa, who he recently learned goes by more than one name.

The Book of Kringle – Legends of the North Pole dives into the origins of Santa Clause and how he turned the North Pole into what children know it as today. Manusol the Elf is the narrator, using descriptive language to share the tale of how the Kringle brothers were polar opposites before Kris became Santa. The reader gets to hear about the first time Santa flew his sleigh, why bells are jingled and much more. The illustrations add a dazzling effect to each page as the reader can see the magic in multiple forms.

The minute Hannah and Jack heard that Santa had more than one name, they were hooked. They wanted to know more about him and were certainly unhappy to hear that his brother was not only the king but a mean one. Little gasps were heard from each of them when the king did something greedy like take away the star at the top of the elves’ Christmas tree or ban the elves from celebrating Christmas entirely. We would take constant pauses in the story to admire the illustrations – they would pick out which elf they though was each character or comment on the king’s scowl. We also had to take a few pauses to define certain words, as this story seems to have been meant for a slightly older audience.

Although they caught on to the theme of performing acts of kindness to all, some of the other themes – such as uniqueness and having faith in the spirit of the unknown – was lost on them for the time being. Despite the story being slightly over their heads, Hannah and Jack were animated throughout the entire book and have most likely asked Mom and Dad to read it to them again. Just in time for Christmas!