Skip to main content

Book Review: "The Saga Of Santa Claus" by M. D. Couturier

It's probably still a little early for Christmas but it's not too early to start doing a little shopping preparation. Today, I want to review a book written by Mark Couturier who was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome at 19 years.

Mark was born in Seoul, Korea and raised in Greenville, Michigan. I earned a B.A. in history at Grand Valley State University and briefly worked as an aid worker in Kabul Afghanistan. The Saga of Santa Claus is a seasonal tale aimed at the young and the young at heart.

Over the years, there have been many retellings and versions of the origin of Santa Claus, the reindeer and all of the various Christmas traditions. My personal favourite will always be the Bass and Rankin "Santa Claus is Comin' to Town" TV movie from 1970. Of course, that's because I watched it every year as I grew up. Kids are always interested in Santa's origins and these quite often become a family annual tradition which stays with you for your entire lives.

While there are plenty of movies on the subject, there's not a lot of books - and nearly all of the books are picture books.

The Saga of Santa Claus is not a picture book. It's clearly aimed at young children but there are a couple of more mature themes (two characters who die). While this is important to the story, it does mean that the reader/listener's age probably needs to be around six to eight years depending upon maturity.

At 40 pages, it's a little too long to read aloud to your child in one sitting but it is broken up neatly into chapters and this would make it an ideal book to read to the kids at bedtime in the week leading up to Christmas.

While it covers the usual topics, how Santa got his name, his reindeer, the elves, the north pole location and the sleigh, it does so in a very unexpected way. It's a much more sobering story than what they show on TV and it's full of emotion. You won't be able to read this without a tear in your eye.

There's one section, right near the end of the book, where just prior to his annual journey, Santa reads out a letter from a chosen child. If you're reading this book to your kids, this is the ideal spot to swap the books' words out for your child's own letter for a bit of "home magic".

The Saga of Santa Claus presents an unexpected and deeply emotional story of the origins of Santa. I'd wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone with young kids aged around six and up. It's a great book that will quickly become an annual tradition in your house.

The Saga of Santa Claus by M. D. Couturier is available in Paperback and Kindle format from Amazon.and from Good Reads.

Honesty Clause: I was provided with a copy of this book free of charge for review purposes.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Aspie Myths - "He Won't Miss Me"

I apologise for the excessive "male-orientated" viewpoint in this post. I tried to keep it neutral but somehow, it just works better when explained from a male viewpoint. Here's a phrase that I've seen repeated throughout the comments on this blog on several occasions; "I know that he won't miss me when I'm gone because he's aspie" Today, we're going to (try to) bust that myth; Individuals I'll start off with a reminder that everyone is an individual. If all aspies were completely alike and predictible, they'd be a stereotype but they're not. Each is shaped by their background, their upbringing, their beliefs and their local customs. An aspie who grew up with loud abusive parents has a reasonable chance of becoming loud and abusive themselves because in some cases, that's all they know. That's how they think adults are supposed to behave. In other cases, aspies who grew up in those circumstances do a complete about-fa

Why Do Aspies Suddenly Back-Off in Relationships? (Part 1)

One of the most frequent questions I'm asked is why an aspie (or suspected aspie) suddenly goes "cold" and backs off on an otherwise good relationship. It's a difficult question and the answers would vary considerably from one person to another and would depend greatly on the circumstances. Nevertheless, I'll try to point out some possibilities. Negative Reasons I generally like to stay positive on this blog and assume that people are not necessarily "evil" but simply misguided. Unfortunately, I do have to acknowledge that there are some people out there who take advantage of others. I read a book a few years ago on "sociopaths in the workplace" and I was stunned by the figures. They suggested that sociopaths were so common that most workplaces (small business) had at least one or two. The fact is that there are lots of people out there who really feel very little for others and who are very manipulative. I'd like to say that aspies aren

Why do Aspies Suddenly Back Off in Relationships (Part 2)

In part one, we looked at the role that Change Resistance plays in causing aspies to suddenly go "cold" in otherwise good relationships. This time, I want to look at self esteem and depression; Self Esteem The aspie relationship with themselves is tedious at best. People with Asperger's commonly suffer from low self esteem. As discussed in earlier posts, this low self esteem often results from years of emotional turmoil resulting from their poor social skills. Aspies are often their own worst enemy. They can over analyze situations and responses in an effort to capture lost nonverbal communication. This often causes them to invent problems and to imagine replies. Everything made up by aspies will tend to be tainted with their own self image. This is one of reasons that people with Asperger's will sometimes decide that they are not good enough for their partner and that they must let them go. Sometimes, the aspie will develop a notion of chivalry or self-sacrific