Originally published on my blog, Nine Pages.

Like The Elf on the Shelf, this book is used to explain a toy more than as a standalone book. The book explains the elves’ birthday traditions and how a child’s elf can with Santa’s help return to the child’s home for the child’s birthday. The elf will decorate a birthday chair for his or her child and watch the events. The elf’s purpose here is more celebratory than policing, and that is a welcome relief from the inherent creepiness of the elf on the shelf’s concept. I thought overall that this was a better book than The Elf on the Shelf, but it was still nothing stellar. I wonder how many children would actually be excited to see their elves some time other than the Christmas season, even donning a costume to look like a cupcake and so distancing themselves from the Christmas season and their regular role as police. I just don’t understand this tradition.