'Twas the Night Before Christmas: 21st Century Edition--By Bruce Kluger and David Slavin--About the Book

T HAS BEEN

NEARLY

200 YEARS

since

the

first

publication of

A Visit from St. Nicholas,

the

twinkling Christmas eve poem

(

commonly credited to

New York professor Clement Clarke Moore

)

that

would

come to embody all the joys of the Yuletide

season—

from the rosy-cheeked, jelly-bellied Santa

Claus, to his

rooftop-romping reindeer, to children

everywhere,

snug in their beds, dreaming of

sugarplums and toys.

Well, that was then and this is now.

‘Twas the Night Before Christmas: 21st Century

Edition

, satirists Bruce Kluger and David Slavin

(National Public Radio,

The Los Angeles Times

oung

Dick Cheney: Great American

) take an

outrageous

swing at the Christmas season, updating

Moore’s

classic poem with all the shock, awe and

corporate hijinks of today’s headlines. In their telling, the Christmas holiday is no longer a
time of sparkling snowglobes and good will to men, but rather an annual celebration of
profits, bonuses and cut-throat competition—complete with disgruntled elves, outsourced
Santas, union conflicts, Twittered conspiracies, randy reindeer, media hysteria, factory
relocations, toxic merchandise and a giant leveraged buyout that would rock the world from
pole to pole.

Packing their verse with hilariously spun rhymes (“The workers grew grim, as they churlishly
chored/ while Santa grew haplessly, craplessly bored”) and even funnier illustrations (picture
Santa jumping on Oprah’s couch, and his wife as a covergirl on Maxim), Kluger and Slavin
spike the holiday egg nog with smart and saucy sass—not to mention loads of laughs.

The story begins seven months
before Christmas, as Santa and
Dolores Claus joyously prepare
for the upcoming holiday season.
To their delight, their nephew
Kyle—an investment banker from
New York—is returning home to
the Pole to assume the role of
Vice President for Strategic
Investment and Quality Control
of Santa's Workshop. But before
you can say "leveraged buyout,"
the quaint, 970-year-old toy
factory is acquired by GiganticCorp,
a notorious Wall Street behemoth
whose holdings include
pharmaceutical and chemical
companies, oil refineries, fast food
and water parks chains, an
aerospace engineering firm and
a wax lips manufacturer. Enter
T. Clive Dingoe, GigantiCorp's
brash Australian CEO, who
promptly introduces the Clauses
and their loyal team of elves to
the mayhem and madness of
modern-day Christmas.

‘Twas the Night Before Christmas: 21st Century Edition is not only a cleverly written and
engagingly illustrated tale, but also a sly and wicked commentary on the complicated times
in which we live.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Bruce Kluger and David Slavin began writing and producing satire for National Public
Radio’s All Things Considered in 2002. Their cultural and political commentary has
appeared in countless publications across the country, including The Los Angeles Times,
The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune and dozens of newspapers in the Los Angeles
Times-Washington Post News Service. Their work has also been featured prominently on the
Internet, including The Huffington Post, where they are recurring bloggers, and Salon.com,
which ran their acclaimed “Memo to George” series during the Bush II administration. Their
first book, the satirical children’s biography Young Dick Cheney: Great American
(AlterNet Books), was published in 2008.

Bruce Kluger (www.brucekluger.com) is a member of USA Today’s Board of
Contributors whose work has been featured in, among others, Parenting magazine, Us
Weekly, Psychology Today, Time Out New York, The New York Times, The Boston Globe,
The Chicago Tribune, NickJr.com and Time.com. He was co-author, with David Tabatsky,
of Dear President Obama: Letters of Hope from Children Across America (2009;
Beckham Publications); and co-edited Marlo Thomas’ best-selling books, The Right Words
at the Right Time, Vols. 1 and 2 (2002 and 2006, Atria) and the children’s anthology, Thanks
& Giving: All Year Long (2004, Simon and Schuster Children's Publishing), the latter of
which became a Grammy-winning CD, for which Bruce served as Associate Producer.

For the past 15 years, David Slavin has worked on TV and radio as a voice-over artist,
providing narration for hundreds of national and regional commercials, as well as for The
Late Show with David Letterman, award-winning documentaries produced by National
Geographic, PBS and the BBC, and numerous audio books. He was also a contributor to the
special 35th Anniversary re-release of Marlo Thomas' Free to Be... You and Me (Running
Press Kids), and Thanks & Giving: All Year Long.

Bruce and David live one block from each other in New York City. Both are married, and
both have two daughters.

‘TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS:
21st Century Edition
By Bruce Kluger and David Slavin
Published by Andrews McMeel Publishing
Publication Date: October 19, 2010
Price: U.S.: $9.99 Canada: $12.99
80 pages, full color, paperback
ISBN: 978-0740797965

You better watch out: Andrews McMeel Publishing Releases….
SPACER
‘Twas the Night Before Christmas:
21st Century Edition
SPACER
Satirists Bruce Kluger and David Slavin take an outrageous swing at the Yule
season in a hilarious illustrated update of the classic Christmas poem

ABOUT THE BOOK

Media hysteria and shocking
scandal erupt when Santa sells
the Pole in ‘Twas the Night Before
Christmas: 21st Century Edition.

21st CENTURY EDITION