The Santa Clauses retold by Achim Broger is a cute story of a young boy who saves Christmas. In this story, the little guy learns that there are many Santa Clauses and they are on strike. They're all in Miami Beach. In that way that children in stories seem capable of anything, Charlie leaves a short note for his parents and takes his piggy bank money "down to the docks" to ride on a ship to Florida. Of course, he doesn't have enough money to pay for a ticket, but he does accidentally secure a job as kitchen help on a ship. Eventually he finds the Santas (all of them white) relaxing on a beach and convences them to get back to work.
The story has a curious beginning. Mr. Jones, a newspaper reporter, wrote a fake story about how there was no such thing as Santa Claus. ". . . since there was no other exciting news that day, he wrote a big headline that said 'THERE IS NO SANTA CLAUS!' All the other reporters saw it and copied the story in their own papers.'" Consequently, fewer children wrote letters to Santa and the Santas felt dismissed.
The title says this story is retold, but I did not see any credit given to the original version.
The pictures by Ute Krause have that childish cartoon like quality perfect for a book like this.
