• Age: 9 to 12
• Grade: 4 to 7
• Reading age: 9 to 12

Annie can’t believe her eyes! The "Santa" in the mall looks so much like her grandfather’s friend, Simon. A Jewish Santa? Annie lines up to get a closer look - and ends up "placing an order". Simon Greenbaum, flat broke, has taken the job at the Winter Castle to earn a few dollars between jobs. And after all, with his long white beard, he looks just like Santa already. "Don’t breathe a word to your Zaideh that you saw me here," he says. "If you don’t tell him that I’m a Santa Claus, I won’t tell him what you asked for. It’s a deal?" When Annie’s parents find out, however, that she has placed an order with Santa for a Christmas tree, they are disappointed and tell her that she must learn to be her own person and stand up for her beliefs in order to earn the respect of others. Meanwhile, Annie wants to help Mr. Greenbaum and comes up with a plan. But to carry out her plan, she must reveal his secret. What will she do?

Sarah Hartt-Snowbell, formerly of Montreal, admits to starting out as a school-phobic non-reader! She attributes her adult-onset interest in reading to her participation in the George Brown College ”Writing-for-Children“ workshop - where reading is a requirement. She believes that children should be given an early introduction to reading, presented in a way that would establish and reinforce a lasting comfort with books. Sarah, a retired medical secretary, dabbles in many hobbies, including word-games, ten-pin bowling and painting. She is a member of The Entertainers of the Wagman Centre. Sarah lives in Toronto with her greatest fan and critic – her husband, Leo. She has two children and five grandchildren. Sarah’s first published book was A Little Something (Napoleon, 1998), a rhyming story in the Napples series of readers for the youngest story lovers. Her second, Yesterday's Santa and the Chanukah Miracle, was turned into an animated cartoon feature with the CBC. (Winter Tales segment. Produced by F Leclerc and B Muldoon, CBC Ottawa 2003/04.came out in 2003.) Sarah's first novel for young readers, Vivian Untangled, was published by Napoleon in the spring of 2006.

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Patty Gallinger is a freelance fiction writer and children’s book illustrator. In 2018, she published four short stories in A Slice of Life anthology, a book funded by the Government of Ontario to advocate for and raise funds to spotlight quality of care in nursing homes. Patty lives in Burlington, Ontario.

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