Flight of the Reindeer

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Flight of the Reindeer

When Robert Sullivan’s Flight of the Reindeer: The True Story of Santa Claus and His Christmas Mission was first published in 1996, critics applauded.

The Fifteenth Anniversary Edition of The True Story of Santa Claus and His Christmas Mission,
by Robert Sullivan, with drawings by Glenn Wolff, design by J Porter But more important: Kids clapped their mittens and families throughout the land took into their homes (and into their hearts) a book that Jim Doherty of Smithsonian magazine called “a milestone in the literature of Christmas.”
Now, 15 Ch

ristmases later, Skyhorse Publishing brings back into print what Publishers Weekly called in a starred review “a charming new Christmas classic.” This elegant hardcover re-issue features all of the lavish full-color Glenn Wolff illustrations of the original, all of extraordinary visual proofs of the elfin community and its good works, all of the twists and turns of the narrative (as bolstered by testimony of experts, including famous personages such as Sir Edmund Hillary and Arctic explorer Will Steger)—in short, all of the magic. There had never been anything like Flight of the Reindeer. Many writers had approached the irresistible Santa Claus story in a variety of ways, but none had tried to probe the reasons behind it. This would prove to be the eternal value of Flight of the Reindeer. The science was fascinating, the adventures were exciting, the discoveries and revelations were fun. But it was the larger message—the moral of the story, as they say—that resonated then, and resonates today. The critics saw this. Publishers Weekly continued that this was “a delightful, constantly surprising book,” and the writer Melissa Fay Greene called it “magnificent—an amazingly beautiful, magical book.” Thomas Keneally wrote: “At last a writer of great charm brings to bear on a myth which ought to be objective reality the graphic imagination and the narrative skill the subject deserves.” People magazine and Entertainment Weekly joined in the praises, and in the The Tampa Tribune and Times, the critic Julie Empric summed up the view of many: “Most readers of this book, young and old, will gladly suspend their disbelief and let their imaginations take flight with the reindeer . . . A wonderful, timeless, successful adventure in belief.”

29/07/2018

As with the first book, Flight of the Reindeer II will include testimony from people famous and/or expert. In one section, the great and very famous astronaut James A. Lovell figures prominently, as we see here:

He is famously the hero of Apollo 13, the space mission that was to land on the moon but that encountered critical trouble and needed Jim Lovell’s piloting skills and innate courage to bring it home. Many of us have seen the movie. Earlier, in late December of 1968, Lovell was one of three astronauts aboard Apollo 8, a mission that went ’round the moon just as planned. These men on Apollo 8 were the first-ever to fly beyond a low Earth orbit, the first to see the far side of the moon, and the first to see Earth as a whole planet. Astronaut William Anders’s “Earthrise” photo, which is rendered on the cover of our book and also seen on this page, has been called the most important environmental picture of all time. It shows Earth in its isolation, its smallness, its fragility.

It was made by Anders on Christmas Eve. By his side in the space capsule was Jim Lovell, and Lovell later said about his feelings: “The vast loneliness is awe-inspiring and it makes you realize what you have back there on Earth.”

Now we have more from the communication between Lovell and Mission Control in Houston on December 24, 1968. What follows is a somewhat cryptic exchange, an exchange that tantalizes still today.

089:32:50 Mission Control: Apollo 8, Houston. [No answer]
089:33:38 Mission Control: Apollo 8, Houston.
089:34:16 Lovell: Houston, Apollo 8, over.
089:34:19 Mission Control: Hello, Apollo 8. Loud and clear.
089:34:25 Lovell: Roger. Please be informed there is a Santa Claus.
089:34:31 Mission Control: That's affirmative. You're the best ones to know.

Instructions continued from there, and Apollo 8 eventually finished its triumphant mission and returned to Earth on December 27, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean south of Hawaii. The crew of Apollo 8 was then named Time magazine’s 1968 Men of the Year, and they were celebrated at the 1969 Super Bowl.

Now, why would Lovell have bothered to say such a thing about the Great Elf in the critical moment? Why the information about Santa? What had he seen? What moved him?

In the years since, there have of course been conspiracy theories about UFOs or other alien presences in the space between Earth and the moon. Lovell has been doubted, even scoffed at for his Santa comment. But the astronaut, a Captain in the U.S. Navy and a man of great probity, seemed so businesslike and certain and on-the-record. And today, he sticks by his observation . . . .

18/07/2018

As Bob and Glenn progress, we’ll share here some bits with our friends so they can see where we’re headed. Much has happened at the Pole — and throughout our world — in nearly a quarter century! Here’s this, from the introductory chapter of Flight of the Reindeer II:
“That’s the thing,” my host said, as we pored over new volumes in the tiny Kuujuaac museum, “as you say, the world is so much smaller. He certainly feels that in the Village.”

“You know,” I said, interjecting an opinion, “I’ve been feeling it myself, with my family, my own country, which is a lot bigger than the Village. Even ours is a smaller world.”

“Twenty years?” he asked. “Twenty years since we talked?”

“Actually a bit more than that, but yes, only that much time,” I said. “And everything’s going so much faster. Hasn’t it? Everything’s so much more crowded.”

He opened a book to a page with an illustration drawn as if in caricature of Santa Claus beleaguered (in my thinking, beleaguered; but perhaps he is just perplexed) by airplanes. On the opposite page in this book is a photograph of planes flying over the Pole. Not an important photograph, but indicative.

“And yet,” my host said. “He deals with it so beautifully.”

I looked at the pictures. I heard my host say, finally, “Maybe he’s our answer to it all.”

I thought this was a profound philosophy.

07/07/2018

At the moment Bob and Glenn are busily engaged with writing and illustrating "Flight of the Reindeer II: Santa’s Eternal Mission in a Smaller World." Bob has just returned from his world travels to visit with several new and old witnesses, and has learned how Santa and his community are coping, nearly a half-century on, with our busier, more crowded and complicated planet—to which the Great Elf continues to deliver good cheer and lessons. This new book will be Sullivan and Wolff’s third collaboration in this particular non-fiction mode, when the acclaimed “Atlantis Rising: The Story of a Submerged Land, Yesterday and Today” (Simon & Schuster, 1999) is included. It will also be their third Christmas book, as they partnered on Sullivan’s memoir, “A Child’s Christmas in New England,” in 2013. That volume was a finalist for New England’s best book of the year in the annual competition sponsored by the New England Society of New York City

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