STONE HARBOR – The idea for Art Ginolfi’s bestselling Christmas book came in the middle of the night. The borough resident awoke with frantic energy, grabbed his pen, and wrote the first draft of “The Tiny Star,” an illustrated Christmas book that later sold half a million copies and was adapted into a stage play by the Seven Mile Players, a children’s performance group in Avalon.

The story revolves around an anthropomorphic star named Starlet who falls from the sky and witnesses the birth of Jesus Christ. Starlet, in the short narrative, becomes the famous star of Bethlehem mentioned in the Gospel of Matthew. That first draft, written at 1 a.m. on Dec. 10, 1993, received no changes before going to print.

“The manuscript had no edits. It was written in ink and on a yellow legal pad. Looking back, I think of it as a legal contract,” Ginolfi said in an interview. That contract is between himself and God, he said. He sees God as the guiding star that brought his book to success.

Many unlikely factors came together to make that happen. Pat Schories, a children’s illustrator responsible for the iconic “Biscuit” children’s series, had yet to find fame. She was contracted to illustrate “The Tiny Star” and did not catapult to wider success until after it hit the shelves. At 72, she has more than 80 books under her belt.

A publishing deal was struck, Ginfoli said, as if by a miracle.

He embarked on his first-ever business trip to New York City in October 1988. “After my 11 a.m. business meeting, I noticed MacMillan Publishing directly across the street. I decided to stop in during my lunch hour,” he said.

The receptionist, on the ninth floor children’s division of the publishing house, was out for lunch. Ginolfi wandered through the hallways before running into a man who, after hearing Ginolfi’s quick pitch, asked for a meeting in his office.

“He handed me his card. His name was Terry Savoy, the president of Checkerboard Press. He laughed and said, ‘I have been searching for a story about the star of Bethlehem for years. Do you have a manuscript you can send me?'”

A contract was signed within a few days, and the book sold 30,000 copies each Christmas between 1990 and 1994. The publisher went bankrupt unexpectedly in 1994, and it was again up to Ginolfi to market his book to a publisher.

A lot has happened since then: He has signed thousands of copies at bookstores across the country, met with people at Warner Brothers and Disney to discuss animated projects that fell through, and found a second publisher in Thomas Nelson Publishing. The book has sold an additional 240,000 copies under the new publisher.

Ginolfi still hopes that an animated feature can take off. He recorded a demo song in Nashville based on the book, which he is currently shopping around in hopes for a “rising female star or a big star to professionally produce, arrange and record the song,” he said.

The story came back to Cape May County on Friday, Nov. 29, when the Seven Mile Players children’s theater group put on a rendition of the story in front of more than 1,000 people at Stone Harbor’s municipal Christmas tree lighting.

Ginolfi hopes for a full-scale animated movie and hit song based on his book, and for a musical performance of the story at the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree lighting in New York City.

“It has taken me 40 years, but I’m finally starting to understand the master plan,” Ginolfi said. He hopes that the goodness of God can be spread through his story, in whatever medium it takes.

Contact the author, Collin Hall, at chall@cmcherald.com or by phone at 609-886-8600 ext. 156.