The Nutcracker by Alex T. Smith - Digital Sampler

OTHER CHRISTMAS BOOKS BY

ALEX T. SMITH

how winston delivered christmas

‘ Beautifully illustrated, a fantastic idea, a heartwarming story and a book that is destined to become a Christmas classic. ’ Carousel

‘ Utterly gorgeous stuff. ’ Fiona Noble, The Bookseller

how winston came home for christmas

‘ This spectacular volume works like an advent calendar, with 24 and a half chapters and an activity . . . for every (or any) day from December 1 to Christmas. It tells a heartwarming story of Winston the mouse . . . and the exquisite illustrations are a tour de force. ’ The Sunday Times , best children’s books of 2021

the grumpus

‘ A genuinely hilarious, sweet story that has all the makings of a Christmas classic. ’ Sarah Dawson, The Independent

the twelve days of christmas

‘ A thoroughly modern and joyful update on the traditional Christmas carol. ’ The Evening Standard

©AlexT. Smith–Macmillan Children's Books

Smith–Macmillan

Children's Books

A KINGDOM MADE FROM CANDY

Once upon a Christmas time, In a land far away, In a kingdom made from candy, In a palace built from sweets, On a balcony beneath a large marshmallow clock decorated with iced gems,

The Sugar Plum Fair y was fretting.

His shoes (tied up with liquorice laces) clip-clopped on the polished toffee floor as he strode about, wringing his hands with worry.

‘Oh dear!’ he said, trotting one way.

‘Oh dear!’ he said, trotting the other.

He was about to say ‘oh dear!’ for a third time, when a set of large doors opened behind him. A very smartly dressed

person, all red velvet and gold, shiny buttons, rushed across to meet him.

‘Hello,’ said the new person. ‘You called for me?’

The Sugar Plum Fair y breathed a sigh of relief.

‘Ah, yes, Walter, I did!’ he said. ‘Thank goodness you’re here – I need your help!’

Walter looked worried. ‘What’s happened?’ he asked.

‘It’s the Mouse King!’ said the Sugar Plum Fairy, with a terrible tremble.

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Walter gulped. ‘Oh no!’ he said. ‘What’s he up to now?’ There was a dramatic pause, then the Sugar Plum Fairy said in a whisper: ‘SHENANIGANS!’

Walter gasped.

‘What sor t of Shenanigans?’ he asked fretfully. The Sugar Plum Fair y narrowed his eyes.

‘I’m not sure,’ he said. ‘But he’s up to Something, and I’m very worried. I’ve heard he’s been . . . been STEALING THINGS! It’s nearly Christmas and I have all the sweets here to think about – I can’t let him steal them. Particularly the Rocket Drops. I have to protect them especially or else . . . or else Christmas will be RUINED!’

Together they looked over the balcony at the Kingdom of Sweets below. The town square was buzzing with business as the townsfolk dashed about putting the final touches on all the Christmas sweets and candies they had been working

©AlexT. Smith–Macmillan Children's Books

so hard on all year. The air smelt deliciously of sugar and excitement.

‘We can’t have that!’ exclaimed Walter.

‘We cer tainly can’t!’ agreed the Sugar Plum Fairy. ‘But I have a plan and I just hope it works. I am going to put a spell all over the Kingdom of Sweets to keep everything safe. Ahem . . .’

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At this, he took out his magic wand (which looked a lot like a lollipop because it was actually a lollipop) and took a deep breath. Then he waved it around three times and tapped it lightly on the ground.

There was an explosion of light and sugar and sherbet. Walter’s tall black hat nearly blew off and the Sugar Plum Fairy’s candy-floss hair shook and wobbled.

Then, from where the lollipop wand had touched the ground, a little bubble formed. It lifted into the sky, sparkling magically, then grew larger and larger and larger until the whole Kingdom of Sweets sat safely encased in its twinkling form.

The Sugar Plum Fair y nodded approvingly, then flicked his wand again. A sweet, wrapped in glittering foil appeared in the air between Walter and the Sugar Plum Fairy. He unwrapped it. Inside was a small golden key.

The Sugar Plum Fair y gave it to Walter.

‘I need you to look after this,’ he said. ‘And take it far away from here. After you leave, nobody will be able to get

in or out of the Kingdom without it. Keep the key safe and well away from the Mouse King.’

Walter looked anxious.

‘Are you sure you want me to do this?’ he said. ‘I’m not very brave and—’

The Sugar Plum Fair y held up a hand to stop him. ‘You are my best and dearest friend and so clever too. You are the perfect person for the job, I just know it. With the key in your care I know everything will be okay. Now, after Father Christmas has been, come back here and unlock the Kingdom’s gates. That will break the spell and hopefully all will be ok. Will you do that for me?’

Walter felt ner vous but nodded solemnly and took the key. He tucked it safely inside his smart red jacket. Then he nodded to his friend, saluted and hurried away.

BUT . . .

Little did Walter and the Sugar Plum Fairy know that someone had been watching them.

Far across the valley, in a fortress made from the stinkiest cheese you could ever imagine, the Mouse King lowered the telescope he’d been looking through and laughed a sneaky laugh.

‘Well, well, well.’ he said. ‘So the Sugar Plum Fairy thinks he can stop me, hey? ME? THE GREAT GORGONZOLA, the Mouse King himself! HUMPH! He has another thing coming – nobody is going to stop me,

especially when I am so close to completing my plan!’

He pulled himself up to his full height (which wasn’t very tall) and clicked his fingers.

‘Roquefort! Manchego! Where are you?’

Two mice jumped to attention and stepped out from the shadows.

‘Prepare the Cheese Carriage, we must leave immediately!’ snapped the Mouse King.

Then he g rinned a sneaky grin. ‘We have Shenanigans to attend to!’

And with that the three mice swept out of the room.

BUT . . . little did they know that someone had been watching them.

The Mysterious Arrival Of A Mysterious Stranger Which Is Altogether Most Mysterious

it was Christmas Eve and behind the tall front door of 172 Knickerbocker Avenue a party was in full swing. In the parlour, an enormous Christmas tree was glittering with candles and decorations. A fire crackled comfortingly in the grate, and the air was filled with the lovely sound of an orchestra playing jolly tunes. The house belonged to Mr and Professor Str udel, and everyone who was anyone was at the party – the Battenburgs, the Sachertortes, Monsieur and Madame Chocolat-Chaud from Paris, Signora Panettone from Italy, and even Princess Tårta from Sweden. All of them were dressed up to the nines and waltzing around in clouds of chiffon and lace.

Ever yone was having a thoroughly marvellous time.

Well. That’s not quite true. Two people were not having a marvellous time.

Clara Strudel and her younger brother Fritz were sitting on the stairs with their faces cupped in their hands. They were feeling rather glum.

‘You can’t say this isn’t a good party,’ said Clara, pushing her specs up her nose, ‘because it is. It’s just not OUR sort of party, is it?’

Fritz wafted a disappointed hand around the room.

‘No tinsel!’ he said, shaking his head in disbelief.

‘No tinsel OR paper chains!’ said Clara in dismay, ‘And the music is just too, too sensible!’

She pulled a face and so did Fritz because sometimes he liked to copy.

‘We like great loud parpy music, don’t we?’ said Clara. ‘Something we can really wiggle our bottoms to.’

She looked around the room.

Her parents and their guests were waltzing about very elegantly indeed, but nowhere was a single bottom doing anything even approaching a wiggle OR a waggle.

The children made disappointed noises.

‘It’s the food that’s worrying me the most,’ mused Clara, as a cavalry of smartly dressed waiters whizzed past holding gleaming silver trays aloft. ‘It looks lovely, of course it does, but it’s not like it was last year, is it?’

Fritz shook his head.

©AlexT. Smith–Macmillan Children's Books

‘No sweets!’ he said. ‘Just cheese!’ He pulled a face. Fr itz hated cheese. It was his Worst Of All Foods.

‘Yes!’ agreed Clara. ‘You’re right – there aren’t any sweets! There were heaps of them last year, weren’t there?

Candy canes and caramels, gold chocolate coins, humbugs and gumdrops.’

‘Gobstoppers!’ squeaked Fritz, excitedly. ‘And bonbons! And sugar mice and cookies.’

‘And an enor mous gingerbread house covered in icing sugar snow!’ cried Clara. Her eyes sparkled as she remembered it.

Both children sighed again.

There were no sweets at all at this year’s party – in fact, there hadn’t been any sweets anywhere for weeks.

First, it had been the biscuits and cookies they noticed were missing. Then the cakes had vanished, and now sweets and chocolates seemed in very short supply too.

Clara and Fritz loved sweets and chocolate more than anything in the whole world. Christmas was, to their thinking, all about sweet treats and delicious delicacies, but this year their beloved treats seemed to have disappeared entirely.

Their eyes fell on the currently empty stockings hanging by the fireplace. In just a few hours, after the party was over and the guests had gone home, those stockings would hopefully be filled to bursting with delicious sweets

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from Father Christmas.

He’s never let us down before where sweets are concerned, thought Clara. Then she made a decision. She pushed her glasses up her nose and stood up.

‘Come on, Fr itz,’ she said. ‘Let’s go to bed.The quicker we go to sleep, the sooner it’ll be Christmas morning and the sooner we’ll be able to tuck into our Christmas treats. There’s no point us staying up for this silly party. Nothing exciting is going to happen.’

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Fritz ag reed and the two children turned to go upstairs, but before they had even climbed a single step they heard a noise coming from behind them.

KNOCK! KNOCK!

They stopped and listened. The air around them suddenly started to shimmer with a strange sort of excitement.

Clara wondered whether it was magic. Then she shook her head. No, that was a silly idea. She was eight now and trying very hard to be grown up. Being a grown up, she thought, meant not believing in silly things like magic. However, right at that moment that was quite difficult because the quivering air around her made her tummy feel all fizzy and giddy.

KNOCK! KNOCK!

There was the noise again.

Clara and Fritz waited for a moment, but no one else seemed to have heard it.

KNOCK! KNOCK!

They crept slowly down the hall.The noise was coming from the front door. Behind the round, stained glass window, they could see the dark shape of a person standing outside.

‘Ooh! What shall we do?’ whispered Fritz, slightly worried.

The person knoc ked again.

‘We’ll have to answer it!’ said Clara, and before Fritz could protest, his sister had turned the handle and opened the door.

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Standing on the doorstep was a mysterious stranger.

Clara and Fritz knew he was mysterious because he was wearing a large hat and a long cape, and there is nothing more mysterious than that. He was very tall, but the shadow falling across his face from his hat made it difficult to tell what he looked like.

‘I’m here for the par ty,’ said a voice from under the hat. It was a nice, friendly voice that made Clara think of hot buttered toast.

But before she or Fr itz could say anything to him –not even a little ‘Hello’– the stranger bowed to them and invited himself into the house, then strode down the hall.

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©AlexT. Smith–

THE MAKER OF TOYS AND MAGIC

it seemed, despite what Clara had said earlier, that something exciting WAS going to happen. The new guest tur ned into the parlour, and Clara and Fritz scampered along behind him.The orchestra stopped abruptly and the dancing came to a screeching halt. In the quietness, every set of eyes in the room swivelled toward the cape-clad figure and the two children beside him.

Clara and Fritz’s mother, Professor Strudel, took a step forward with a polite, but slightly confused, smile on her face. She looked down at Clara, who realized that she should introduce their new guest.

‘Um . . . hello, Mama,’ said Clara. ‘This is . . . erm . . .’ and she realized that she had absolutely not a single clue who the tall person standing next to her was.

Smith–Macmillan Children's Books

Just then, a hand appeared through a fold of the thick velvet cape, presenting Clara with a small white card.

Clara read it aloud:

HERR DROSSELMYER

Maker of Toys. And Magic.

An excited murmur twittered amongst the guests.

‘A conjurer!’ said Mrs and Mrs Battenberg together, delighted.

‘I love tricks!’ cried Monsieur Chocolat-Chaud.

Clara looked up at Herr Drosselmyer. Was he really going to perform some magic?

As if in answer to that question, there was a sudden loud pop, a flash and a puff of violet smoke. When it cleared, Herr Drosselmyer’s hat had vanished and his plain black cloak had been transformed. It was now magnificently decorated all over with hundreds of glowing, glittering stars.

‘Magic!’ gasped Fritz.

Clara was just about to ag ree with him when she remembered herself.

‘Don’t be so silly!’ she said, in a voice she hoped sounded Wise and Grown Up. ‘There’s no such thing as magic! It’s all just Trickery and Tomfoolery.’

But Fritz wasn’t convinced. He knew magic when he saw it and he was sure he had just seen it. He got his

eyeballs ready to see some more, and the mysterious Herr Drosselmyer did not disappoint.

For the next half an hour the mag ician performed magic trick after magic trick, one after another, each more elaborate than the last.

Gold coins appeared from behind people’s ears.

An enormous length of shimmer ing silk hankies were pulled from the sleeve of Princess Tårta’s party frock.

A trio of pastel coloured pigeons appeared out of Mr Strudel’s best top hat, and fluttered to the cellist’s head – where they preened themselves for a moment – before disappearing into thin air.

Mr and Professor Str udel’s guests clapped and shrieked with enchantment. Everyone was delighted by the performance.

But Clara wasn’t.

She stood to the side, watching closely from behind her spectacles. The tricks were good, but that’s all they were – tricks. She’d seen similar ones before at birthday parties. It’s not REAL magic! she thought to herself.

Just then, as a fluffy white rabbit vanished under one of the waiter’s silver domed trays, Herr Drosselmyer called Clara and Fritz over to him. The two children did as they were asked and walked towards the centre of the room. Fritz scurried excitedly but Clara followed more shyly.

As they neared him, the mysterious magician reached

into his cloak and pulled out a box tied up neatly with a bow. He gestured for the children to open it.

‘What’s going on here?’ wondered Clara, suspiciously, but with all eyes in the room now on them, she and Fritz undid the ribbon together.

The box fell open. Inside there was a large white egg and a funny little Nutcracker doll.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then the egg started to move.

Delicate twinkling music came from within it and a crack appeared on the surface. Everyone drew closer to watch. Suddenly, the egg split wide open, and inside a clockwork swan began to elegantly unfurl itself.

Ever yone gasped – even Clara. It looked so beautiful and real as it shook itself, opening and closing its enormous, feathery wings.

Beside the swan, the Nutcracker doll stood to attention. He saluted, clicked his heels together and clambered onto the swan’s back.

In an instant, the swan had swept into the air, and together the toys soared majestically around the room, high above the Christmas tree. The Nutcracker waved as the guests below beamed and twittered with pleasure.

Eventually, the bird fluttered back down to earth, landing just in front of Clara and Fritz.

Clara took the Nutcracker from the swan’s back

and peered closely at it. She wanted to know how Herr Drosselmyer had created such an elaborate trick. Watching the two toys flying through the air you would have sworn that they were alive, and no matter which way she examined the object in her hand she simply couldn’t work out the toymaker’s secret. She brought the Nutcracker even closer to her face.

And that’s when it happened.

As she looked at the Nutcracker’s painted face, the toy smiled at her. Not a mechanical clockwork smile, but a real, happy, pleased-to meet you smile. Then he blinked like a person.

Blink! Blink!

It made Clara jump.

The same fizzy, giddy feeling she’d felt on the stairs shimmied in her tummy, and the air around her quivered. She closed her eyes, then opened them and looked again at the toy’s face. It was back to normal. Had she imagined the doll’s cheeky grin?

She glanced around the room. All the adults were twittering away excitedly and it was clear that none of them had been paying any attention to the doll in her hands.

But Fritz had.

‘You saw that!’ he whispered excitedly. ‘You saw him smile and blink, didn’t you?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Clara,

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©AlexT. Smith–

trying to sound grown up. But the truth was that she HAD seen it.

But how was it possible?

Fritz seemed to have heard the question in her brain.

‘MAGIC!’ he squeaked.

Clara ignored him. She turned to ask Herr Drosselmyer how he’d made the Nutcracker smile in such a life-like way, but she discovered that she couldn’t.

In another puff of violet smoke, the toymaker had vanished, leaving only the clockwork swan and Nutcracker doll as clues that he’d even been in the parlour at all.

‘Hmmm.’ harrumphed Clara, looking down at the wooden doll tucked into the crook of her arm. Then she pushed her specs up her nose.

‘Well,’ she said, determinedly, ‘I’ll just have to solve this magic mystery all by myself.’

a nd t h e m ouse king’s C hristm as s henanigans

A Christmas chapter book for children, lavishly illustrated and packed with festive excitement.

Counting down to publication with an exciting marketing and publicity plan, including:

• A fun virtual event for primary schools across the UK featuring Alex T. Smith’s beloved Christmas characters

• Author signings and bookshop appearances in the run-up to Christmas

• Extensive social media activity with author videos, influencer content and more

• Nutcracker-themed Christmas crafts and activities to entertain the whole family

• Coverage in Christmas gift guides and books of the year pieces

• Reviews, features and interviews in national and regional media

©AlexT. Smith–Macmillan Children's Books

DETAILS

Publishing 5 October 2023 • 255 x 194mm • £15.99

ISBN: 978-1-0350-2817-7

SPECIFICATION

Jacketed hardback with foil

Head and tail bands

Colour illustrations by Alex T. Smith

CONTACTS

INTERNATIONAL RIGHTS

Cathryn Gregory, Head of Rights cathryn.gregory@macmillan.com

HOME ENQUIRIES & TRADE SALES

Sarah Ramsey, Sales Director sarah.ramsey@macmillan.com

EXPORT SALES

General enquiries

c/o International Sales Department internationalsales@macmillan.com

PUBLICITY

Clare Hall-Craggs, Head of Publicity clare.hall-craggs@macmillan.com

Smith–Macmillan Children's Books

MARKETING

Cheyney Smith, Marketing Manager

cheyney.smith@macmillan.com

The Mouse King is up to some very sneaky shenanigans. The night before Christmas, he steals the key to the Kingdom of Sweets and sets out to stop Christmas once and for all!

Clara and Fritz Strudel, and their new friend the Nutcracker, are the only ones who can stop him. But when Fritz starts turning into a mouse, it’s a race against time to make it to the Kingdom of Sweets and find the Sugar Plum Fairy –the only one who can break the curse!

Can the adventurers stop the Mouse King’s evil plan and save Fritz, before it’s too late?

COUNT DOWN TO CHRISTMAS WITH ALEX T. SMITH!

A FESTIVE BOOK IN 24 1/2 CHAPTERS.

©AlexT. Smith–Macmillan Children's Books