By Dc. Tom Cuskey
Editor
The Diocese of Syracuse apparently is fertile ground for holiday authors.
The Dec. 7 edition of The Catholic Sun included a feature on Jennifer Catney’s “Filling the Manger,” a children’s Christmas book about acts of kindness that translate to strands of straw in the Holy Infant’s manger. (visit https://tinyurl.com/csun-filling-the-manger). Catney is a parishioner of All Saints Parish in Syracuse where families participated in a “build your own manger” activity, related to the book, after a recent Advent Mass.
“Gerald M. Hoppe and Family” has a new Christmas book as well, “Santa’s Magical Masks,” a sequel to a book Gerald himself wrote in 1987, before Amazon came along and helped change the publishing landscape. Now, writing is something of a Hoppe family affair.
“The book was a collaboration project. There’s a little bit of everybody in the story,” according to John Hoppe, Gerald’s older brother and a member of the linked parishes of Christ the King and Pope John XXII in Liverpool. John is the primary author and catalyst in this new story with authorship attributed to the entire Hoppe family. “The basic story and the flow of the book is my outline, but I just wanted this to be a family project.”
The central character in the book is one of Santa’s elves, WeeOne, whom readers first met in “Santa’s First Helper,” Gerald’s earlier book. That book was written as a tribute to Gerald’s son Mark who was born with severe physical and mental challenges. “He passed away in 1990,” John said, adding that Mark was often hospitalized. “He was never able to walk or talk, and he experienced seizures most of his life.”
Gerald was something of a professional Santa Claus when Mark was young, at a time when there were department stores and malls throughout the area, each one of them employing a jolly St. Nick impersonator to entertain the kids. The story of “Santa’s First Helper” helps explain to a youngster why there are multiple Santas in multiple locations throughout the season. About 4,000 copies sold in CNY but the book didn’t catch on nationally. That, of course, was before Amazon made it possible for local authors to easily expand their market. So, John Hoppe went back to the typewriter — make that keyboard now — to have another go at it.
“We always wanted to write a sequel, but never had a real great idea,” John adds, “and we just got busy with our lives.” But ideas started to stir after Mark passed away, and then, during the coronavirus pandemic, the theme for the new book really took shape. “I came up with this idea for a sequel and I spent about a year writing it.” John was fortunate to connect with Lindsey Smiles, an illustrator and Newhouse School of Public Communications graduate student at Syracuse University. Everything fell into place and the book was self-published through Amazon in September of this year.
No spoiler alert here; we will not reveal the full plots of either book. One has to invest $12.99 per book to purchase and read all about WeeOne and Santa. But there is a charitable twist to this story. Since there are only a few hundred of the original books left in print, Hoppe sells them direct at church functions. Five dollars of every book sold is donated to that parish’s youth program. Same is true of the new book which is also available on Amazon. Any purchase made online results in 15% of royalties going to St. Jude’s Children’s Research. All of the giving back is done in Mark’s memory.
If you would like to purchase, visit Amazon or reach out to John at [email protected].
