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    A Kidnapped Santa Claus: Magical Creatures, A Weiser Books Collection
    A Kidnapped Santa Claus: Magical Creatures, A Weiser Books Collection
    A Kidnapped Santa Claus: Magical Creatures, A Weiser Books Collection
    Ebook24 pages16 minutes

    A Kidnapped Santa Claus: Magical Creatures, A Weiser Books Collection

    By L. Frank Baum

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    About this ebook

    Varla Ventura, fan favorite on Huffington Post’s Weird News, frequent guest on Coast to Coast, and bestselling author of The Book of the Bizarre and Beyond Bizarre, introduces a new Weiser Books Collection of forgotten crypto-classics. Magical Creatures is a hair-raising herd of affordable digital editions, curated with Varla’s affectionate and unerring eye for the fantastic.

    From the beloved author of the Oz series this short story, first published in 1904 woman's magazine The Delineator, this short Christmas tale takes place in Laughing Valley where Santa Claus and his magical crew live, surrounded by demons in the mountains above. A seldom read story that will delight any fan of L. Frank Baum, The Wizard of Oz, and fairy-tales.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRed Wheel Weiser
    Release dateDec 1, 2011
    ISBN9781619400139
    A Kidnapped Santa Claus: Magical Creatures, A Weiser Books Collection
    Author

    L. Frank Baum

    L. Frank Baum (1856-1919) published The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in 1900 and received enormous, immediate success. Baum went on to write seventeen additional novels in the Oz series. Today, he is considered the father of the American fairy tale. His stories inspired the 1939 classic film The Wizard of Oz, one of the most widely viewed movies of all time. MinaLima is an award-winning graphic design studio founded by Miraphora Mina and Eduardo Lima, renowned for establishing the visual graphic style of the Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts film series. Specializing in graphic design and illustration, Miraphora and Eduardo have continued their involvement in the Harry Potter franchise through numerous design commissions, from creating all the graphic elements for The Wizarding World of Harry Potter Diagon Alley at Universal Orlando Resort, to designing award-winning publications for the brand. Their best-selling books include Harry Potter and the Philospher’s Stone, Harry Potter Film Wizardry, The Case of Beasts: Explore the Film Wizardry of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, The Archive of Magic: Explore the Film Wizardry of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, and J.K. Rowling’s Fantastic Beasts screenplays. MinaLima studio is renowned internationally for telling stories through design and has created its own MinaLima Classics series, reimagining a growing collection of much-loved tales including Peter Pan, The Secret Garden, and Pinocchio.

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    • 3/5
      Cute little bit of fluff. Santa is kidnapped by the Daemons of Selfishness, Envy, Hatred...Everything turns out all right, of course - even the presents get delivered properly (more or less). Cute short piece.

    Book preview

    A Kidnapped Santa Claus - L. Frank Baum

    Fairies, Knooks, and Gnomes, Oh My!

    When I first saw the title of this short story by the beloved L. Frank Baum, I immediately thought not of the Land of Oz but rather of Tim Burton. Each year as the weather turns crisp and the strings of lights and Santa hats appear in shop windows, I pick a night to snuggle up on the couch with a cup of cocoa and celebrate the coming holiday season by watching The Nightmare Before Christmas (come now, did you think I was going to say It's a Wonderful Life?) For those who may not have seen this delightful and very-gothic-Christmas flick, there is an especially amusing scene where the three kids—one dressed like a witch, one dressed like a skeleton, and one dressed like a devil—at the command of the bogeyman (Oogie Boogie) are charged with the task of kidnapping Santa Claus. This rowdy little bunch, who are decidedly more trick than treat, rise to the occasion, shoving poor Santa into a giant Halloween candy bag, all the while singing a mocking song called Kidnap the Sandy Claws.

    (Side note: Jack Pumpkinhead was a character in the Oz books that didn't make it to mainstream Hollywood with The Wizard of Oz. He first appeared in The Marvelous Land of Oz. The main character in The Nightmare Before Christmas, Jack Skellington—aka The Pumpkin King—bears a decided resemblance to Jack

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