"Before Santa Claus was Santa Claus, he was a boy, and this is his story. Young Claus is both an origin story and a children's fable for adults, in the tradition of The Little Prince and The Last Unicorn. Young Lars Claus loses his father in a logging accident and, with his mother and grandmother, has to move to a strange land in the Far North, a land of exiles, outcasts, and survivors. Here he encounters a school where the children only laugh at the misfortunes of others, where small, bizarre creatures are imprisoned beneath a fish liver oil factory, and where his widowed mother is wooed by the malevolent Mayor Wolfpaw. This is a wild romp of a book that soars into the skies and plunges deep beneath the permafrost. It is a book filled with the marvels and ghosts, a book where Lars, with the help of invisible helpers, will learn to carve, where he will discover sorrows as deep as his own and eventually the healing powers of gifts. Certainly no one has been the subject of more lies by parents than Santa Claus. This book attempts to find the simple human truths buried beneath those awkward lies. It charts the journey of a boy beset by grief who will, after many trials, fashion a vision of generosity that will encompass the entire world"--