The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus

By: L. Frank Baum

Narrated by: John McDonough

A baby is found by wood nymphs in the forest of Burzee. They raise him as their own and give him the name Neclaus. When he grows up, Neclaus has to leave the forest so he makes a home for himself in the laughing valley of Hohaha, where he lives amongst humans for the first time. He discovers there that many children are very poor and neglected so, to cheer them up, he whittles wooden toys as gifts. Eventually he makes presents for all the children and so the story of Santa Claus is born.

From the author of the Wizard of Oz comes a magical tale about the origins and story of Santa Claus including Santa's childhood among the fairies and animals, how he came to make presents, and why he comes down our chimneys at Christmas.

Public Domain (P)2017 Recorded Books

makes me cry every time

this story is the reason I still believe in santa claus! the book is much better than the movie. :)

Great story poor audio

The story was fantastic I love getting the backstory of Santa Claus and his magical roots, the narrator was great definitely added an extra vibe to the story the only thing keeping it from 5 stars is very low audio quality at times it was very hard to hear even trying to listen whit max volume I strained to hear a lot of the time.

Delightful!

A fantastic and unexpected origin story for Santa Claus full of wonderful characters and sentiment.

Interesting in some ways, too long in all ways.

What fascinated me as I listened were the sustainability themes that rose. Food was dairy and plant based foods, no animal lives taken. Trees were only harvested for use after they had died. Lion leather was from a beast that had a long life and died naturally. Considering when this was written, 1902, it was all very surprising. But aside from that joy, the story was simply too long. I found I just couldn't sustain my interest despite the wonderful narrator.