What Reindeer Can Teach Your Kids

By Belinda Elliott
CBN.com Senior Producer

CBN.com – What is life like at the North Pole? A new children’s book gives insight into the magical Christmas village where Santa, his elves, and his reindeer prepare to distribute presents on Christmas Eve.

The Great Candy Cane Caper is the first book in The Reindeer Chronicles series, written by author Joe C. Watson. The novel centers around two young reindeer, PJ and Zipper, who are learning to fly so they can one day pull Santa’s sleigh like their elders.

The two deer enjoy their carefree life in the village until they are approached one day by a stranger, Baddey Twoshoes, who entices them with a promise to make them famous. What the two reindeer do not know is that Twoshoes has developed an evil plot to ruin Christmas, and he plans to use them to help him pull it off. From there, the countdown is on to see if the reindeer will realize their mistake in time to save Christmas.

The tale offers readers a behind-the-scenes glimpse at what goes on in the Christmas Village not only in the days leading up to Christmas, but throughout the rest of the year. But to dismiss the book as nothing more than a secular Christmas tale filled with reindeer, elves, and candy canes would be a mistake. The book also beautifully illustrates moral values like honesty and responsibility.

“I have tried to include in it a lot of the Judeo-Christian traditional values and beliefs,” Watson said. “There are a lot of things along those lines that are important to everybody, like trust and friendship, teamwork, and community values.”

This particular story, he said, focuses on how children should interact with strangers and what to do when things in life don’t go as planned.

“What I hope to do is give parents a springboard by which they can talk to kids about things,” Watson said, “especially if they are paying attention to what kids read.”

Since the popularity of books is on the rise among kids, he said, parents can take advantage of that by using books to reinforce the values they are teaching their children at home. After seeing the effect that authors like J.K. Rowlings had on children when she published her Harry Potter series, Watson said he would like to see books with Christian values become just as popular.

“We need stories with the positive Judeo-Christian tenements of truth, justice, honesty, and a higher power, or love making a real difference,” Watson said. “Those are the kind of things that I think have helped make not only the world great and America great, but helped make families great.”

The author has two more books planned for the series. The next one, The Legend of Twoshoes, will be published in early 2009. It takes place in the time period prior to The Candy Cane Caper and explores the origins of Baddy Twoshoes and why he is on a mission to destroy Christmas. The final book in the series, The Nimbus, will be published later in 2009.

For more information on The Reindeer Chronicles, visit the author’s Web site, www.triplebraid.com.

Purchase your copy of The Great Candy Cane Caper.

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