Dishing up a lighter-than-air confection replete with homages to classic holiday tales, Grabenstein pits bookish 12-year-old Eloise Dobyns against spiteful failed author Roger Scobeenzee—who, having gained access to the source code for all the Christmas stories in existence, aims to overwrite them with his own dour vision of a Christmas Eve Martian invasion. Fortunately, Eloise has on her side an odd but helpful new schoolmate named (with shades of a certain well-known Christmas film) Clarence. She’s also helped by giddy bazillionaire Luigi L. Lemoncello, whose awesometastic library includes a Fictionasium where stories come to life (and where most of this one is set). The author tucks in nods to Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, the Dongzhi Festival, Yalda Night, Chawmos, and Bodhi Day, but (the presence of Clarence notwithstanding) sticks to a secular version of the meaning of Christmas that doesn’t go beyond the wondermous rewards of exchanging gifts. And, of course, saving all the Christmas stories—even sad ones like The Little Match Girl—while solving a Yuletide rebus and bringing Scobeenzee around to a change of heart and a jolly “God bless us every one!” Characters largely read white. Sparse stock art is scattered through the interior.