What Does Mrs. Claus Do? »

What does KATE WHARTON do? She's a screenwriter, kung fu black belt, statistician, self-defense instructor, wife, and mother of two. She wrote WHAT DOES MRS. CLAUS DO? one Christmas Eve while watching Mrs. Claus rappel down the Space Needle near her home in Seattle, Washington.


CHRISTIAN SLADE enjoys illustration as much as Santa's elves enjoy building toys. For research, Christian journeyed by snowsled, with his wife Ann and their toddler twins Kate and Nate, to the North Pole to interview Mrs. Claus personally. The sleigh was pulled by their two Welsh corgis, Penny and Leo, from their home in Winter Garden, Florida.

We all know Santa spends Christmas Eve making lists, checking them twice, reigning in reindeer, leaving gifts for the "nice." But what about Mrs. Claus? First-time author Kate Wharton weaves a modern tale about the ways Santa's better half might occupy herself while her husband navigates chimneys and stuffs the stockings.

Wharton's merry text will inspire many a theory about Mrs. Claus, while the visual jokes in Christian Slade's detailed paintings will have little bellies shaking like bowls full of jelly.

Children's Literature

There are many stories about what Santa Claus is up to on Christmas Eve, but not much about his wife. Now bouncy verses speculate on what keeps versatile Mrs. Claus busy. She might just take it easy. Or she might host a black-tie Jingle Bell Ball, honoring veteran deer. Perhaps she holds a meeting of Claus Enterprises to project future toys, or works with elf engineers on new products. Wharton speculates that she might even shadow Santa, making sure all goes well as he does his job, then beating him back home afterward. There are three double pages plus of other possible jobs she might do. But best of all, Mrs. Claus and Santa are both happy to have him home safely so they can spend Christmas together. Slade's illustrations of watercolors, gouache, ink, graphite and colored pencils flood these pages with a very busy jolly, plump, bespectacled, gray-haired woman. The elves are created for laughs with long crooked noses and pointed green hats, while the settings are definitely naturalistic. The multiple monochrome images on the front and back end pages depict our sweet old lady in a myriad of activities from traditional in the front to very non-traditional: skate-boarding, ballet dancing and log-rolling, for example, in the back. Reviewer: Ken Marantz and Sylvia Marantz