Fairy Tale Christmas by Micheal McLean & Scott McLean

Fairy Tale Christmas
by Michael McLean & Scott McLean
176 pages, Middle Grade Fiction
Hardcover
$12.17 (Hardcover)
$10.49 (Kindle)

About the book:

Santa Claus has been kidnapped! Behind the plot are the fairy tale villains: an evil queen, a wicked stepmother, a beanstalk giant, and, of course, the mischievous Rumplestiltskin. They have a plan that will erase the term “Happily Ever After” from our storybooks forever.

To save the day, the fairy tale heroes must decide if they will sacrifice their happiness so that Santa can bring Christmas to all the children of the world. Christmas is almost here, and time is running out.

Fairy Tale Christmas is a little bit Into the Woods and a little bit How the Grinch Stole Christmas! and features black-and-white illustrations as well as a number of music icons that invite readers to download the free music and listen to the songs sung by the fairy tale characters.

My thoughts:

This is a "different" kind of Christmas story. Focused on the villains of the Fairtytale World and their plans for revenge and need to have a "happily every after". You have the Drama Queen, Rump (or Goldman as HE prefers to be called), Agatha, the dim-witted Giant and the Abominable Snowman who also owns the restaurant (the clubhouse?) where they all meet to make their dastardly plans to kidnap Santa.

I loved the black & white drawings, the visual descriptions used to describe their surroundings, the characters and they only make the story more interesting to kids and their parents who really should be reading it aloud starting about the age of 8 or so. I still haven't really decided which story this reminds me of - the writing is a bit different. It reminds probably most of the Lemony Snicket series (I think) with maybe a dash of Romona Quimby thrown in (the tiniest dash). 

It's different and should appeal to middle grade kids everywhere - might even make a good stocking stuffer since kids love anything Christmassy year round.

About the authors:

Michael McLean is a celebrated LDS musician with more than 2 dozen albums and has written, produced and directed award winning films. Scott McLean is an author, songwriter and playwright. For more information go to michaelmcleanmusic.com or for the soundtrack go to FairyTaleChristmasMusical.com

Disclaimer: I was offered a copy of Fairy Tale Christmas to read and review on GivingNSharing in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to have a positive review & no $$ exchanged hands.