Twelve Days in Clausland: What Every Child Was Never Told

Dr. Yule Yancy is on a quest – he is searching for Clausland in Canada!  After meeting John Nicholas Claus, also called Santa, who explains how his family’s toy making enterprise works, he starts believing.  Clausland, too, has a strange effect on Dr. Yule.  When he meets Miss Sylvia, he falls in love and contemplates a life with her in Clausland – is this for real?  The longer Yule stays, the more he becomes a Clauslander.  The only disturbing thing is he dreams of a talking Rudolf, and we know reindeer can’t talk!  And he dreams of Santa’s reindeer really being angels who keep humans on Earth out of trouble – talking reindeer who are angels?  All Dr. Yule knows is he wants to marry Sylvia and live in Clausland forever. 

Phillip Welborn pens a fanciful tale of a young bachelor who stumbles upon a magical but real land, with inhabitants who carry out the Santa Claus tradition.  His descriptions of a modern day Santa and the magical land of Clausland are the backbone of the story.  Readers will find their imaginations prodded by this storybook tale, and dream of a visit to this wondrous place.  The storyline would benefit from more depth in its descriptions, instead of  a “he said/she said” format, and more development of the relationship between Dr. Yule and Sylvia would improve the plot.  Editing would have reduced the numerous grammatical and word usage errors. Still, "Twelve Days" gives readers a chance to dream, and to think about how Santa might live and work in our world today.

Victoria Z. Burg