AN inventor who retired to Bermuda to escape his dysfunctional family in the North Pole is featured in a recently-released Christmas book for kids,

Children's author Tomie dePaola, who visited the island a few years ago, thought it would add comic appeal if he could dress one of Santa's guests in Bermuda shorts.

"There's a multitude of reasons why the uncle retired to Bermuda after a life of ice fishing in the North Pole," he explained via telephone. "One was that I wanted to put him in Bermuda shorts. I thought that would make a very comic costume ? when everybody else is dressed in their semi-Scandinavian, winter North Pole clothes and there's the uncle with his sunglasses, his Hawaiian-type shirt and his Bermuda shorts.

"The other reason the uncle comes from Bermuda is because my editor of 40 years, Margaret Frith, was born ? and brought up ? in Bermuda. She still has family there. So it was a bunch of disparate things that I pulled together and I thought, retiring in Bermuda, that's a perfect place."

MR. dePaola studied art, and eventually children's book illustration, at New York's Pratt Institute. "From the time I was only four years old I knew I was going to be an artist when I grew up," he said. "I knew that I wanted to write stories and draw pictures for books ? we lived in a small, industrial town in Connecticut and that was probably the only place I saw any art.

"It didn't quite work out the way I wanted it to. I had to wait about six or seven years before I got the first book to illustrate and I illustrated about seven books written by other people before I wrote my own. It was an editor who said, 'Don't you have any ideas for your own story?' I said I didn't think so but the truth was I had lots of ideas. It's just that none of them were very good."

He believes he wrote and illustrated his first book some time around 1965.

"I've been very lucky in life in that I've had people around me who have really encouraged me ? even from the time I was a child. My parents were always very encouraging about me wanting to be an artist, which is very unusual. My father never asked how are you going to make a living?"

The idea ofcame from a Christmas card Mr. dePaola received from his travel agent and her husband a few years ago.

"On the front of it was a vintage photograph of a Wagnerian opera singer dressed as Brunhilde," he explained. "The caption on the card read, 'Christmas greetings from Olga Claus'. And when you opened it, the card was signed, 'Santa's less popular sister'.

"I make my living through ideas and I immediately thought, 'Oh my gosh, wouldn't it be great to do a book about Santa's entire dysfunctional family?' Everybody who celebrates Christmas or has Christmas dinner has disastrous stories to tell. So I just took everything I could remember from my own life, made up a few others and threw them all together in the book."

Still working at 70, Mr. dePaola says he has no plans to retire soon ? especially in light of the reception the book has received.

"I've been on a book tour and am amazed at the response. People are buying handfuls. It's for kids but I think adults are enjoying it too."