Samurai Santa: A Very Ninja Christmas

PreS-Gr 2—When little ninja Yukio is denied an epic snowball fight on Christmas Eve because all the other little ninjas are on their best behavior in anticipation of Santa's arrival, he decides Santa must be chased away from Ninja Village. Yukio carefully plans his ambush and tricks the other ninjas into helping him run off the mysterious stranger in red, who then reappears as a samurai leading an army of snowball-wielding snowmen. An epic battle ensues. However, at the end, Yukio realizes he may have ruined Christmas for his ninja friends with his trick…but no, the snow battle turns out to have been Samurai Santa's holiday gift to Yukio all along. Digitally rendered illustrations give a flavor of more formal Japanese art mixed in with Sunday comics, which mashes up nicely with the Saturday matinee-tinged text that just begs to be performed in a reader's most dramatic voice.