I never knew I had an arm until this guy called out, Hey you want to try and get a ball in the hole, sonny? I was only nine, but mom said, come on, let s play. This Carney guy with no teeth and a fuming cigarette hands me five blue rubber balls and says if I throw three in the hole we win a prize. He s grinning, because he took mom s five bucks and figures a sucker is born every minute. That really got me, because we didn t have any money after Fernando took off, and he only comes back to beat up mom and steal our money. So I really wanted to get mom back something, you know, for her five...

Real Santa is a funny poignant novel that shows us what one man will do to keep his daughters innocence intact by preserving her lbelief in Santa Claus. Bob Kronenfeldt is an unemployed engineer with one shot to keep his daughters belief in Santa intact. When she tells him the only way she will believe in Santa is if she can videotape him and then tells her fourth grade class she will prove the existence of Santa Claus by posting her video to YouTube; Bob realizes he must become the Real Santa. He devises a way to actually land nine reindeer on his roof and go down his chimney to deliver the...