No one loves Christmas more than Sophie Kringle's

eccentric Auntie Claus, who keeps trees decorated year-round in her penthouse atop New York City's elegant Bing Cherry Hotel and always wears a long, red dress trimmed with white fur. Every afternoon at three o'clock sharp, this bighearted woman serves her rather spoiled niece tea and Christmas cookies and never fails to reiterate the words she lives by: "And darling, always remember my first and final rule -- whether it's birthdays or Christmas, it is far better to give than it is to receive."

Elise Primavera gives readers a great deal to smile at -- and to think about -- in Auntie Claus, a picture book released last month by Harcourt's Silver Whistle imprint. When Sophie secretly accompanies her aunt on her annual "business trip" that mysteriously coincides with the Christmas season, she witnesses the wonderful ways in which Auntie Claus (whose brother is a familiar, jolly old fellow who also dresses in red) practices what she preaches.

Her timeless message is likely to reach the ears of many young readers in the next few months, as Auntie Claus has already warmed the hearts of some influential grownups. On October 26, Rosie O'Donnell announced on her TV show that she had chosen this title as her weekly pick for her "Rosie's Readers" book club. According to Entertainment Weekly, O'Donnell is also interested in starring in a Nickelodeon Films adaptation of Primavera's book, planned for a fall 2000 release. During the coming holiday season, Saks Fifth Avenue will feature artwork from Auntie Claus in the windows of its flagship Manhattan store, and its branches will sell tie-in merchandise, including Christmas tree ornaments and a china tea set. In subsequent years, the window dressings will travel to other Saks stores. With the buzz about the book growing steadily louder, the publisher recently ordered a fourth printing, bringing the in-print total to a figure that staffers would only describe as "in the six figures."

The Birth of Auntie Claus

An enormous fan herself of both Christmas and New York City, Primavera had for a long time wanted to create a picture book about the holiday, in part to avenge a former classmate who bluntly announced that Santa Claus did not exist. "This news was a huge blow to me, since I was so taken by the idea of Santa and had concocted a whole imaginary world about what went on up at the North Pole," she explained. "All these years later, I wanted to prove that kid wrong."

The title for the book washed over the author one day when she was taking a shower, trying to come up with words that rhymed with "Santa." (New Englanders should be apprised that the New Jersey-born author's pronunciation of "auntie" rhymes with "shanty" rather than "shonty.") Though "Auntie" more precisely rhymes with "Santy," Auntie Claus came close enough. Once Primavera found her title, her main character sprang quickly to mind.

"I jumped out of that shower and immediately started to write my ideas down," she recalled. "I didn't have the whole story yet, but I had a character and a setting." New York City is, according to Primavera, the perfect home for Auntie Claus. "I've always associated New York with Christmas," she said. "And this city has such potential and so many possibilities -- you never know what's going to happen here. It is a great alternative to the fantasy world of the North Pole."

New York in summer was the setting for Primavera's initial tête-à -tête about her idea with Paula Wiseman, editorial director of Silver Whistle. "I remember very well the day Elise came into the office and told me about this wonderful Christmas book character," Wiseman remarked. "It was a steamy day, so hot that your feet stick to the pavement. She was just finishing the art for Jerdine Nolen's Raising Dragons [published by Silver Whistle in spring 1998], but that's not what she wanted to talk about. She told me about Auntie Claus, and I immediately said, 'It sounds great -- roll with it.' "

Primavera did, though the road to creating the book was rockier than the word "roll" implies. "I worked on the book over a period of three years, which proved to be a very strange time for me," she said. "In fact, my world was turned upside down." Simultaneously, her father became very ill and her mother had what Primavera called "a horrendous accident." The author moved from New York City into her parents' New Jersey home so she could take care of them while working on the book. Due to what she called "a total miracle," both parents recovered before long, and the tide turned. "Suddenly, instead of me taking care of them, they were taking care of me, since the art for the book was going agonizingly slow, and I was under an incredibly tight deadline to finish the book," Primavera said. "Creating the art, which I did in gouache and pastel on illustration board treated with gesso, is a very long, involved process and was very time-consuming. I did nothing else but this for a full two years."

A High-Spirited Reception

As temperatures drop in Auntie Claus's native New York City -- and presumably at the North Pole as well -- this endearingly eccentric character is receiving a warm welcome at bookstores throughout the country. "Accounts have registered tremendous enthusiasm for this book, and it has had a broad distribution in all outlets," reported Paul Von Drasek, Harcourt's national sales manager.

During October, Primavera greeted young fans at bookstores in North Carolina, Wisconsin and Texas, and she will be making similar stops in Washington, D.C., New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Georgia in the coming weeks. Jennifer Anglin, owner of Enchanted Forest in Dallas, termed Primavera's visit to her store "a huge hit. She was absolutely charming and initiated lots of dialogue with the kids. They really loved her." Of the 150 copies of Auntie Claus that Anglin ordered, all but two had sold by the first week of this month. Noting that she was placing a substantial reorder, Anglin said that "this was an unusual case in that residual sales after this author's signing went through the roof. Normally, post-visit sales are not very impressive, but many customers came in after the fact to buy the book because they'd heard such enthusiastic reports about the author."

At Hobbit Hall in the metro Atlanta area, owner Anne Ginkel is gearing up for Primavera's visit on December 11, the day of the Festival of Trees, a city-wide event that benefits two local children's hospitals. Primavera will sign books at the store in the morning and at the festival in the afternoon. "I cannot say enough wonderful things about Auntie Claus," Ginkel said. Her enthusiasm for the book is registered in her initial order of 1000 copies. "Our customers love it -- their eyes are immediately drawn to the wonderful cover art," she said. "Every year, people ask me what the big new Christmas book is, and this year I am telling them that Auntie Claus is it."

All of this certainly validates Wiseman's claim that Auntie Claus has led "a charmed life. Whenever anyone reads it, it becomes an instant favorite. The book has truly been serendipitous -- it seems that every day we receive another piece of good news about it."

Though the book's sales figures surpass those of previous books Primavera has either illustrated or created by herself, Wiseman hesitated to call this the author's breakout book. "More aptly, this is Elise's signature book," she stated. "Auntie Claus has all the elements of who Elise is: it is very funny and has great heart. And it reveals a very important aspect about Elise -- she hasn't at all forgotten what it's like to be a kid."

In forgiving hindsight, despite the turmoil surrounding the creation of Auntie Claus, Primavera described this as "the most fun book I've ever done." And although she promised herself that she would "never, never do another book like this again," she is already at work on the sequel to Auntie Claus. "The fact is, I found the Bing Cherry Hotel and the North Pole wonderful worlds to be in," she explained. "It was so important to me to bring both of these places to life for kids, since I loved inhabiting them. Now that I'm doing a sequel, I'm back there again!"