Cat on the Dovrefell by Tomie dePaola

[S&S Books for Young Readers] A very large cat may be the key to saving Christmas in this wryly humorous retelling of the Norwegian fairy tale The Cat on the Dovrefjell. When a man captures a great white bear, he is determined to bring it as a gift to the king of Finnmark. But to do that, first he must cross the Dovrefells—a mountain covered in snow and ice—in the middle of winter. On Christmas Eve, he reaches the house of a man named Halvor, and asks if he can stay the night. Halvor warns that every year on Christmas Eve, trolls come down from the mountains to take over his home, but the man and his polar bear think they may just be able to help...