This is a book that has a "feel" to it. You feel the familiarity of the the unfamiliar story. You feel the setting. You feel the chase, the victory, the suspense. A book with a feel. I didn't give it five stars because the language is not as rich as it could be, written for the intermediate school level or so. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. You can tell the author did his homework with research to make this book one that has the 'feel' of an Anglo-Saxon tale told to children around a hearth. ( )

I enjoyed this and surprised myself with it. It has a very heavy fantasy setting and vibe making it more in line with my memories of Christmas movies that I liked the most as a kid. I can't name them off the top of my head though as I watched them as TV specials and never knew the titles. This did an amazing job tying in all the legends into one coherent story. Highly recommend for fantasy buffs looking for fun Christmas read. ( )

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Hm. All the elements are here - drama, leavened by a little humor, lots of heart, good messages about friendship, loyalty, courage, integrity... just enough perfect pictures... lovingly researched and created by Abbott... but somehow it just didn't create a magical feeling for me. Recommended - but I do hope you like it more than I did.

Oh wait, I think I might know what bothered me - Kringle didn't struggle enough. He went through all these miserable experiences, but he didn't struggle to make himself move on, he always knew what needed to be done, he didn't reveal any human vulnerabilities. ( )

Tony Abbott’s first foray into longer fiction, this fantasy follows the adventures of the eponymous Kringle, a young boy living in Britain at the time of the Roman withdrawal in 410 C.E. As order recedes with the departing Romans, danger and darkness grow, and Kringle finds himself adrift in a hostile world. Eventually involved in the struggle against the goblin hordes who threaten the land, he finds himself the unexpected leader of a crusade to free some enslaved children, and rid the land of darkness...

Abbott’s melding of the traditional religious aspects of Christmas with the more pagan folkloric elements of the Santa Claus legend is admirable as a model of tolerance, but not always successful as a narrative. The story sometimes seems like a jumbled hodge-podge, with various disparate elements thrown together almost at random. Kringle becomes years older in a matter of months, with no apparent explanation, other than the expedience of such a plot device.

Note: Other fantasy retellings of the St. Nick legend include: The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum, Nikolai of the North by Lucy Daniel Raby, and The Legend of Holly Claus by Brittney Ryan. ( )