Swashbuckling Santa

It's Christmas!!!!!! Ok not quite, but it is December which makes it officially the Christmas season YAY!!!!! To kick of this wonderful month of festivities I would like to share one of my new favorite books with you, The Guardians: Nicholas St. North and the Battle of the Nightmare King.  I picked up the book in the young readers section after flipping through a short picture book story in the same world The Man in the Moon.

This series is about different legends, myths and stories that play a role in most children's lives and gives them a really new and unique spin. 

The first book in the series is about a pre Santa Clause if you will.  The story is this.  A moonbeam accidentaly frees a horrible creature called Pitch, who rules over nightmarish creatures called Fearlings.  While freeing Pitch the moonbeam also freed a wisp of a boy who seems to be all light and joy to counter balance Pitch's darkness and fear.  In another place the wizard Ombric created a safe haven for any person or family wishing to come and invent, create art, or do any number of esoteric things.  This place called

 Santoff Claussen is protected by numerous enchantments and only those who truly seek to learn, invent and create can get there.  Eventually a swashbuckling swordsman with no family the titular Nicholas St. North makes his way into this magical community.  He quickly becomes enamored by the lifestyle and becomes Ombrics apprentice.  Meanwhile Pitch and his Fearlings have broken into Santoff Claussen and only the quick thinking and expert sword play of Nicholas saves the community.  Ombric then tells the village and Nicholas the history of Pitch.  A long time ago there was a race of  people traveled the stars in a ship that could turn into a moon.  Along the way thy met and defeated a great evil.  One of their best warriors volunteered to guard the evil in it's prison, but after many years of faithfully fulfilling his duty he succumbed to the whisperings of the evil one and let them loose.  He became one of them and created the

Fearlings out of children.  He battled the Tsar and Tsarina of the moonship and was barely defeated by the being known as Nightlight, the spectral boy that was released earlier.  To keep their baby son safe from Pitch, who wanted to turn the little prince into a Fearling, they sent him on the moonship to a planet populated by humans.  The small boy grew up with only his Lunar servants who taught him how to be Tsar.  It is now the grown up prince of the moon Tsar Luna that must be appealed to for help. To accomplish this, Nicholas uses his new knowledge to make an automaton.  He fine tunes it inside it's chest places thing precious to every member of the village so the automaton will know them.  Ombric and Nicholas set out with the automaton, much to the dismay of Katherine, a young orphan ward of Ombris and a very dear young friend to Nicholas.  They task her with keeping the village safe and Nicholas leaves her a compass that always points to his whereabouts in case of an emergency.  The automaton has several built in surprises, including his ability to turn into a flying ship/sleigh.  The two head out to the Himalaya's to find one of the missing pieces of the moonship to try and find a permanent  solution to the problem of Pitch.  They

 eventually discover that the automaton has become possessed by Pitch and the two are turned into living dolls.  Katherine sensing trouble follows after them and is able to bring Nicholas back to his human state using nothing but wishing and belief.  They eventually convince a group of moon priests to help them contact the Tsar Lunar, who tells them how to at least temporarily defeat pitch.  Armed Yeti's and such help our intrepid explorers and Pitch is defeated for the moment.  The story ends with the idea that Pitch is not gone for good and that others will be needed to join together to defeat Pitch and his Fearlings for good.

I loved loved loved this book.  It was a quick short read, perfect for the younger group to read, or to read to the small people in your life, or like me curl up in the hotel room and forget to turn off the light 'cause I just had to finish it and give it to my Baby Sis before I had to leave.  The pacing of the story is perfect, the structure is fantastic, world building amazing and it uses beautiful big bright words to describe things.  A bonus in this book are the beautiful illustrations which enhance the book and make it all that much more magical.  I liked that it was a pre-story to Nicholas becoming Santa Clause, but it was not a Christmas book, there were hints at the legend he would become, but not in your face rehashing of the Santa Story.  I can't wait to read the other two books in the series and will probably by the two picture books that are also a part of this magical world for all my nephews for Christmas this year.  I would very much recommend it to the young crowd, to the old crowd, to the in between crowd, and anybody else I may have missed :-) Also make sure you check out the website theguardiansbooks.com it has all kinds of cool stuff on it.

What was your favorite childhood figure when you were young?  Did you know about the sandman before this series?  Do you like stories that combine various legends like this, or do you prefer each tale to remain separate?