Dooney Press

It’s an epic adventure in the middle of the living room when Blossom, a headstrong young squirrel, runs away from her overprotective father and finds herself trapped inside the Joneses’ family Christmas tree—where decorations come to life.

It's not easy being a young squirrel raised by a coward. At least, that's how Blossom sees her father. He's scared to leave their home. Not just the grounds of the country cemetery, Father never leaves the Sturdy Oak. He doesn't even step one toe outside.

Ever!

When Blossom runs away, she finds herself trapped inside the Christmas tree of the Jones family—where the decorations come to life.

Blossom finds new friends in a band of handmade “lower branch” ornaments that tries to help her find her way home.

But she’ll soon wonder if Father was right to fear the outside world when a coterie of “upper branch” ornaments plots to rob the squirrel of her luxurious fur to fashion a coat for their leader—the angelic tree topper, Christmas Darby.

Thomas Tosi is a writer/filmmaker who, together with his wife, Heidi, has produced an award-winning children’s website, educational multimedia games, and dramatic films which have aired on national television, PBS affiliate stations, and screened in numerous film festivals.

He was born and raised in New Hampshire, where he and Heidi still reside. He takes pride in the fact that they now live in a solar-powered home where they grow and can organic vegetables.

In the woods around their house, he watches critters of all sorts, including squirrels.

Well, the novel “Blossom’s Tale” is an adaptation of a screenplay that my wife, Heidi, and I wrote. The core idea for "Blossom's Tale" developed while my family was decorating the Christmas tree.

It occurred to us that some levels of the tree could be deemed more desirable to ornaments than others. For example, would it be considered prestigious to be hung above the window sill—an area clearly visible to people out on the street? Wouldn't that be a place of honor? Should ornaments feel shame if they are hung on the low branches where they are hidden from the public and are at risk of being knocked loose by the movement of presents or a curious pet?

What would happen if a newcomer arrived in such a tree with this distinct social class stratification? In the case of "Blossom's Tale," this newcomer is a young squirrel running away from an overprotective upbringing and experiencing the outside world (or would that be the inside world?) for the first time.

And all of those thematic issues are swirling around underneath while up at the surface we just have a fun adventure story of a young squirrel that gets trapped in a Christmas tree with ornaments that come to life.

I can’t go into much detail yet, but it’s another middle-grade novel and a throwback to the kind of book that I enjoyed when I was a kid. This one is about an ordinary boy with simple but misguided desires. His actions set in motion a chain of events that amplify to preposterous extremes and he has to deal with that and understand why it happened. Oh yeah, and it has doughnuts in it—so, that’s always good.