Parents' Guide to The Legend of the Christmas Witch

In the LEGEND OF THE CHRISTMAS WITCH, brother and sister twins were abandoned by their parents and cared for by animals in the forest, which they can magically communicate with. One day, they get separated in the forest and the brother, Kristoffer, is taken in by a kind, childless Danish couple -- the Kringles -- who raise him to be kind, and he learns from his father how to make wooden toys, which he would share with the village kids. Meanwhile, his sister, Kristtörn, is left behind and angry about it. She's taken in by a witch and raised in the forest, taught how to use her magic and advised by her adoptive mother to hide her magic from people, who will hunt her down for being a witch -- which eventually happens, after they see her use magic to heal a rabbit. To protect her from the angry mob, the witch sends her off and instructs a raven to watch over her. Kristtörn sails off in a boat in search of her brother, and ends up at the South Pole. She learns from the raven that on Christmas Eve her brother travels the world in his sleigh pulled by reindeer to bring joy and presents to children. So she continues her quest for years, traveling the oceans in her boat, now pulled by penguins. "Every yuletide she would search again, determined to catch him." In cities and villages, she sometimes stops at houses an leaves gifts she made for the children -- "a woven grass doll, a wreath of penguin feathers, or a simple bouquet of holly leaves" -- which the local people view as "evil pagan objects," so the legend of the Christmas Witch grows. When she finally finds Kris Kringle in Lucca, Italy, on Christmas Eve, it's not as rosy a reunion as she might have imagined. Angered by Kris' rejection of her and believing her "precious Yuletide" had been "destroyed by greed," she declares, "I am going to ruin this Christmas holiday once and for all!"