Christmas came early this year for Angeli Elliott when the box arrived containing copies of her book, Festival of the Elves. “It was like getting a really good present,” she says. “I wasn’t ready for the emotion of seeing my first produced book. I kept leafing through it and saying, ‘Oh, look at this….’ ”
Written under Elliott’s elf nom de plume, Holly Figgyworth, and enchantingly illustrated by Mai S. Kemble, the book was inspired by an Elliott family tradition that dates back to when her two children were 4-year-olds. (The book is dedicated to them; they are now both in college.) Believing that “the magic around you is the magic you make,” Elliott penned notes for a family Advent calendar. Each note, in rhymed verse, suggested a fun activity for that day, such as creating a piece of artwork for their grandparents, singing and dancing with their parents, or finding a trinket that elves had hidden in the house.
“My kids loved it so much,” Elliott says, “that I thought it might be the basis for a good story. Part of my career has been creating experiences through apps, so I thought, ‘Why not create an experience through a book?’ ”
That was more than a decade ago. Since then, she worked in HR, primarily with banks. In April 2020, the self-described “Latina entrepreneur” founded TechReady HR, an advisory firm specializing in HR cloud initiatives. With the country gripped by the pandemic, Elliott took inspiration from one of her favorite books when she was a preteen, The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale.
“I was dyslexic,” she said of her own childhood. “I really couldn’t read until I was much older, but I liked being read to. The Power of Positive Thinking was a big book for me, and it’s something that inspired me to keep a positive focus and finally write Festival of the Elves.”
Elliott didn’t want Festival of the Elves to be about saving the holiday, about being naughty or nice, or about presents. “I wanted it to be about family experiences and paying it forward through acts of kindness,” she says.
Festival of the Elves, the first in a proposed trilogy, introduces Grandpa Figgyworth (a character based on Elliott’s father), an elf who comes up with the idea to make the month of December “full of surprises and delights.” His grandchildren, Noel and Holly (the names of Elliott’s children), decide to expand their grandfather’s festival daily activities beyond elf families: “After all, everybody could use some extra magic, right?”
Holly and Noel convince the Elder Elf Council to let them share the Festival of the Elves with humans. They visit the home of the Puddington family, and for 24 days, they leave notes and trinkets for them:
Each day in December will be a day to remember.
We’ll leave you a note, for when you rise.
We think you’ll find it a terrific surprise.
Now let’s play a game called hide-and-seek.
Hopefully, you haven’t taken a peek.
We’ve hidden a trinket for you all to find.
It’s something we made and one of a kind….
The book’s focus is on the joy of giving and sharing. There is only the mildest of peril: Will Holly and Noel’s supply of magic, depleted by their trip to the human world, grow enough to get them back home?
Elliott chose illustrator Kemble (Enchanted Reindeer Treats, 2012) for her “beautiful use of color,” she says. “I had a gut feeling [Kemble] was the right person to take the vision in my head and bring it to life. I wanted the elves to be cool looking, a little Victorian but a little steampunk. Every time she sent me a sketch, I thought, ‘Oh my God, that’s it.’ ”
Kirkus Reviews agrees, calling Festival of the Elves “beautifully illustrated” with “detailed Mary Engelbreit–like illustrations…intricate backgrounds and a multihued cast of elves.”
That aspect of the project was what primarily resonated with Kemble. “Angeli and I come from mixed families,” she says. “She didn’t want the elves to all look the same. I thought that was wonderful. It brought the book a different flavor. Just like in this world, you’ve got all sorts of colors and flavors of people; why not in the elf world as well?”
Kemble, a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, has illustrated several books, including Catherine Urdahl’s Polka-Dot Fixes Kindergarten (2011) and Kevin Morrison’s I Can Speak Bully (2009). She also wrote and illustrated The Moon and the Night Sweeper (2007), but she prefers the fun challenge of bringing authors’ ideas to life, she says.
Festival of the Elves is the first book under Elliott’s eWonderment publishing imprint. Kirkus Reviews praises Elliott’s “determinedly cheerful” narrator and “accessible vocabulary for strong independent readers.” A companion website, festivaloftheelves.com, further immerses visitors in the culture of her elf world with a printable coloring book, map of the North Pole, and elf recipes and facts, and it invites parents to register for free elf notes they can share with their children. They can select notes from a dozen elves, including Bonnett, Eggnog, Northstar, and Marzipan.
The second book in the proposed trilogy, The Aurora Borealis Challenge, will further explore the elf world with a coming-of-age story about the stages elves go through on their way to becoming magical beings. The third book will be a chapter book that Elliott compares to Elisa Sabatinelli’s adventure, The Secret of the Magic Pearl.
Elliott has adopted “the magic around you is the magic you make” as eWonderment’s motto, and she hopes Festival of the Elves does its part to bring some magic into families’ lives this holiday season. “It’s a great opportunity for families to do things together,” she says.
Kemble added a little magic of her own: Her drawings of the Puddington family are renderings of Elliott, her husband, and their two children. “Even if nothing comes of this book,” Elliott says, “at least I have this beautiful book with my family in it.”
Now that’s positive thinking!
Donald Liebenson is a Chicago-based writer.
