Santa.com

September 1, 2020
Upgrades at the North Pole go awry in this Christmas story. This poorly written story with dimly lit, subpar cartoon illustrations is both difficult to follow and oblique in its messaging. The opening pages reveal that an overwhelmed Santa "made a BIG mistake" and decides he needs to modernize North Pole operations. The accompanying illustration is made to look like a book within this book, and it shows a little White girl sadly looking at a gift labeled "SUZIE." It turns out that this book is being read to an elf named Yo-Yo by his grandfather. Directly after, Yo-Yo goes to the workshop for his first day on the job only to discover that their ultra-high-tech operations have been hacked and Christmas is imperiled. Plot points fail to connect as Yo-Yo travels around the world trying to find Santa, who apparently is taking a break after his big mistake (which, readers eventually learn, was giving Suzie the wrong gift). Lo and behold, Suzie is now an adult, and she's behind the hack because she's held a grudge all these years. Other details are too bizarre and haphazard to mention, and the illustrations suggest that Santa hires Suzie to take over operations in the end. "Christmas isn't about deadlines or shiny production lines. It's about the Christmas spirit and giving with love," opines Santa, which explains exactly nothing. Santa and Yo-Yo both present White, and the elf workforce is diverse. Not nice, not naughty--not good, either, alas. (Picture book. 4-7)

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September 21, 2020
What if Santa modernized his operations? Hicks and Cubberly imagine that scenario in this tale about young elf Yo-Yo, who is just starting out at Santa.com. On the eve of Yo-Yo’s first day on the assembly line, where he loads delivery drones with children’s Christmas gifts via the push of a red button, his grandfather regales him with favorite stories of Christmases past—the days when Santa loaded a sack with elf-made toys and delivered them himself via reindeer-powered sleigh. So, when Cyber Scrooge hacks Santa.com, tripping an alarm and threatening Christmas, Yo-Yo enlists a team—and seeks out Santa himself—for a back-to-basics rescue mission. Garcia fills the gift fulfillment center with looming tech—drones and alarms—that conveys a harrowing surveillance state vibe. Though the cast of wide-eyed characters eventually celebrates the plan’s success, the disjointed story-within-a-story can feel a bit unclear. Ages 4–8.