Catholic Vote Interviews Mike McGrew About "The Boy Who Would Be Santa"
- Danny Gallagher
- Dec 6
- 2 min read
New children’s book brings the story of Santa Claus back to Saint Nicholas
A new children’s picture book brings its readers on a journey through the life of Saint Nicholas, the Catholic bishop who inspired the legend of Santa Claus.
Written by Mike McGrew and illustrated by Kim Merritt, The Boy Who Would be Santa aims to both inform children about Christmas’ religious significance and inspire them to pursue sanctity.
In a Dec. 11 email interview, McGrew told CatholicVote that he wrote about Santa in hopes that children would cease to “see him as a secular figure but as a religious person who advocates kindness throughout the year, especially to the less fortunate.”
“Hopefully, they can be motivated to be ‘santas’ themselves,” McGrew added, “through their own faith and good works.”
McGrew, who has previously published another children’s book, Saint Brendan and the Voyage Before Columbus, was inspired to write about St. Nicholas because of his experience playing Santa at Christmas markets. He told CatholicVote that he was “stunned by how many kids and parents seemed unaware of the direct connection between the real Saint Nicholas and Santa Claus.”
“Most did not know that Santa means ‘Saint’,” he said. “This motivated me to write my book and help educate families about the religious roots of Santa and how he evolved from young Nicholas’s gift-giving to poor children.”
St. Nicholas, who lived in modern-day Turkey, was a 4th-century bishop known for his love of the poor and children.
Published in October, The Boy Who Would Be Santa is based on its author’s extensive reading about the saint’s life.
McGrew says that the most surprising thing he learned about St. Nicholas when researching for the book was that the bishop was imprisoned for his beliefs by the Roman Emperor Diocletian and later freed by Constantine, the Roman Emperor who converted to Catholicism and is venerated as a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church.
McGrew hopes that the book’s message from “Santa” to children will inspire them.
“Be kind and be happy every day,” the book says. “Each of you can become a santa too!”
Here's a link to an article that is published on Catholic Vote's web site about Mike McGrew's book "The Boy Who Would Be Santa."
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