WESTERLY — Jan Brett, the celebrated author and illustrator known around the globe for her exquisite artwork in children’s books like “The Mitten,” “The Nutcracker” and “The Snowy Nap,” will roll into town Sunday morning in a brightly-decorated behemoth of a bus with the words “The Christmas Sweater” emblazoned on the sides.
“The Christmas Sweater,” is Brett’s newest book and Westerly is stop number four on her marathon national tour which will have her visiting 23 cities in just 17 days.
Brett is traveling with her husband, Joseph Hearne, a musician who recently retired from the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and a pair of bus drivers, who alternate taking turns behind the wheel of the enormous, eye-catching vehicle.
The tour began in Rutland, Vermont on Nov. 28, with stops in South Portland, Maine and Marlborough, Massachusetts.
From Westerly, the giant green and white bus — adorned with an enormous painting of a little boy hugging a giant, beautifully-decorated Christmas tree surrounded by presents aplenty, a family of adorable-looking Pugs —will continue south to New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Maryland, then north to Michigan, on to Ohio then to Wisconsin, Kentucky, Kansas, Texas, Mississippi, Alabama then to Orlando, Florida where the tour will end on Dec. 14.
Brett’s Westerly stop will take place at the United, is sponsored by Bank Square Books and will include a presentation and drawing demonstration and time for her to sign copies of “The Christmas Sweater.”
“It’ll be so exciting to see the children and librarians and teachers,” said Brett one morning last week from her farm on Boston’s South Shore where she and Hearne tend to their chickens and ducks.
“I spend so much of my time at home writing these days,” said the Massachusetts native said with a laugh, “that it will be fantastic, especially now, at Christmastime.”
Brett said that while she loves nothing better than sitting by a fire with her six grandchildren sipping cocoa with Christmas decorations all about, she also loves traveling to visit her fans.
Brett said she is thrilled to continue her “beloved tradition” of traveling across the country visiting bookstores, libraries, and schools in her show-stopping bus, which is this time branded with characters from “The Christmas Sweater.”
Brett said she was inspired to write the book — which features a little boy named Theo and his dog, a Pug named Ariadne — after a trip to Montana and nearly getting lost in a snow storm.
On a family trip to a wilderness lodge, Brett explained, she and her daughter and her daughter’s mother-in-law decided to go out on a snowshoeing expedition.
All was well until snow started to fall “furiously,” darkness began to set in, and the three snowshoers realized they were lost.
“We thought we’d be able to follow our tracks back to the lodge,” she said, “but with the sudden snow, we couldn’t see our tracks.”
Fortunately, Brett’s daughter had GPS and they made their way back to the lodge.
“But later that night,” she said, “I was lying in bed thinking about the close call and I began thinking about different lost and found stories.”
At first, said Brett, her mind turned to Hansel and Gretel. Then, she remembered the ancient Greek Myth of Ariadne.
Ariadne, she said, was a princess and daughter of King Minos of Crete who helped Theseus escape from the Minotaur by giving him a ball of golden thread which he could take to the labyrinth and use to show him the way out.
“That led me to the idea of a little boy who has a pug,” Brett said, “whose grandmother knits a sweater to the dog.”
In “The Christmas Sweater,” Theo, is thrilled with the “fantastically adorned” Christmas sweater his grandma made for Ari, but he can tell Ari doesn’t feel the same way. Determined to show Ari just how cozy the sweater is, Theo plans a hike through the beautiful snowy woods to Echo Lake. But when they reach the lake, Theo realizes Ari’s sweater has disappeared, along with their tracks and familiar landmarks.
“Could they have lost his grandma’s gift and the way home?” Theo wondered.
Luckily, Ari spots something in the snow that turns out to be a solution to their predicament, leading them home to an even bigger Christmas surprise, Brett said.
Brett, who spent many hours reading and drawing as a child, and was a huge Beatrix Potter fan, said she’ll share more about “The Christmas Sweater” on Sunday at the United, where there will be time for photo opportunities with “Hedgie the hedgehog” a character from another of her books.
For more than 40 years, Brett has brought any number of other lovable characters to life. Her illustrations are adored for their classic beauty and vibrant, life-like images of animals, landscapes, and flourishes from cultures around the world.
Her work has been chosen as “Best Children’s Books of the Year” by The New Yorker, Parents, Redbook, and other magazine, and she has been featured in publications like Romper, The Boston Globe, Travel + Leisure and The Los Angeles Times.
In 2021 she received the prestigious Regina Medal for her continued distinguished contribution to children’s literature from the Catholic Library Association.
Customers must have purchased a copy of “The Christmas Sweater” from Bank Square Books to join the signing line, and there will be copies of the book available. The first 100 families in the signing line will receive a free signed Jan Brett poster.
Organizers say Brett will “do her very best to sign all of the books that time permits.”
The number of books she can sign per family depends on how many people attend the signing. If time does not permit there will be special signed bookplates featuring her full-color artwork available for the extra books.
Tickets are $32 for an adult plus a child with a book included, $9 without a book.
For more information and a list of “Frequently Asked Questions,” visit the United website, unitedtheatre.org/
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