Auntie Claus, Home for the Holidays

Auntie Claus, Home for the Holidays, strives to bring the spirit of Mame to the holiday picture book and doesn’t quite get there. It’s the overly complicated story of one Sophie Kringle, whose Auntie Claus normally takes her on a “business trip” from Halloween to Christmas—but when Sophie wins the role of the Sugar Plum Fairy in her school’s Nutcracker production, Auntie Claus decides instead to bring her work home to Sophie in New York. The details of New York becoming the North Pole are funny and would appeal to any native child of the city. But the story—which supposedly centers around Sophie’s sacrifice of her pink tutu to the real Sugar Plum Fairy—is convoluted and takes far too many sidetracks for a good read-aloud to younger kids. The illustrations are colorful and appealing, but many are supposed to represent scenes of winter obscuring city landmarks—it’s necessary, but unfortunately hard to “read” if you’re the child looking at the pictures. A true young Nutcracker fan may be amused at the connections here (and it could make a great TV special), but there are better books to pick up this season.

Fear Factor: (None here.)
Heart: (Sacrifice of important item (pink tutu) to save Christmas: Check.)
Attitude: (Although Auntie Claus’ insistence that at Christmas, you “can have your cake and eat it too” quickly begins to grate.)
Psst: Heroine Sophie’s month spent charming the real Sugar Plum Fairy with sweets—more cake you can “have and eat too”—makes her too fat to fit into her tutu, and makes me uncomfortable.
If you like this: The first Auntie Claus book was far better.