AUNTIE CLAUS

Santa Claus’s big sister is back for a third holiday adventure with her great-niece Sophie (Auntie Claus, 1999). This time Sophie has won the part of the Sugar Plum Fairy in her dancing school’s Christmas Eve performance, and Auntie Claus decides to move the whole North Pole operation to New York City so she won’t miss Sophie’s solo. As New York grows colder and snowier, Sophie interacts with an adult Sugar Plum Fairy from a professional ballet company, and there are frantic plot twists and turns involving too-small and missing ballet tutus. In a rushed conclusion, Auntie Claus, Sophie and the dancing-school kids fly back to the North Pole and perform the ballet there. As is often the case with later entries in a series, the bloom is off the (Christmas red) rose with this overblown effort. (Picture book. 4-7)