Based on the operetta that popularized the fairytale show, for stage, Babes in Toyland (1904) is Anna Alice Chapin and Glen MacDonough's classic tale of adventure, fantasy, and a bit of Christmas magic that has charmed readers and audiences alike for over a century. Alan and Jane have been living with their Uncle Barnaby ever since their mother died some odd years ago. They are fortunate, he likes to remind them, to have even the smallest amounts of food and the nicest of soft beds given that most orphans of the world are without uncles to shelter them-yet while this humble life is enough for the children, it is a miserable existence for Barnaby who secretly plots to do away with the siblings and pocket their inheritance for himself.