Three Must-reads for Thanksgivukkah

Although this year's Chanukah-Thanksgiving convergence is rare indeed, Jewish-themed Thanksgiving books are not as rare as one might think.  These two are some of the best Thanksgiving books - actually, the best books - around.  And for good measure, I added a third, non-Jewish, but still immigrant-focused Thanksgiving book.

In Rivka's First Thanksgiving, the title character, a Jewish immigrant from Eastern Europe, tries to convince her family to celebrate Thanksgiving. She tries to explain to them that Thanksgiving is a purely secular holiday, but they require that she seek permission from the rabbi.  When he denies it, Rivka writes a letter admonishing him, explaining that the pilgrims came to America for religious freedom, just as she and her family did.  The rabbi takes her case to what is essentially an appeals court of rabbis, who grant their blessing.  The rabbi then joins Rivka's family for Thanksgiving and says a special prayer thanking G-d for "the wisdom children give us."  I love lots of things about this book, including the strong heroine, but since we are such a letter-writing family, that is one aspect that speaks to me in a special way.  A lovely book, but beware the mention of pogroms and violence back in Eastern Europe.

Molly's Pilgrim (which I've written about this novella before as an anti-bullying text) is, like Rivka's First Thanksgiving, about how modern immigrants are pilgrims seeking religious freedom.  When Molly is required to make a clothespin doll of a Pilgrim (big "P") for class, her mother helps her by dressing the doll the way they dressed in the "old country."  When Molly's classmates make fun of her, her teacher not only defends her, asserting that coming to this country for religious freedom is the very essence of Thanksgiving and that Molly and her family are indeed (small "p") pilgrims, she explains that Thanksgiving actually has its roots in the Old Testament holiday of Sukkot, something I never knew.  (By the way, author Barbara Cohen is also the author of my favorite Passover book, The Carp in the Bathtub.)

Duck for Turkey Day focuses more on how immigrants, once here, make Thanksgiving their own.  When Tuyet, a Vietnamese immigrant, tries to convince her family to serve turkey, not duck, for Thanksgiving, and fails, she tearfully confesses the truth to her teacher.  To her surprise, her classmates join in, sharing what they ate for the holiday, with their meals including things like rice and beans and not a turkey among them.  I couldn't include a photo of this book as I lent it to my daughter's kindergarten class, in which, out of 20 families, 13 countries or cultures are represented!

What multicultural Thanksgiving books are your favorites?

I Love Hannah!

I love Hannah!  Hannah Diamond that is, the protagonist of Mindy Warshaw Skolsky's lovely, overlooked books set during the Great Depression.  Unlike most books I've read set during this time, these take place not in an urban setting but in a suburb of New York, in Nyack.  I read the books out of order and, in my opinion, started with the best one.  In Love From Your Friend, Hannah, the story is told entirely in letters that Hannah writes and receives.  Her correspondents include a boy in the Midwest whose life is very different from hers, an old friend who moved away, her grandmother, and even President and Mrs. Roosevelt!  Hannah's relationship with her grandmother is especially loving and it is fun to read about Hannah's experiences living behind the diner her parents own.

Having fallen in love with this articulate heroine, I went back to read the other books.  The first two, The Whistling Teakettle and Other Stories About Hannah and Carnival and Kopeck and More About Hannah, are written more simply and are not as engaging.  Both take place before her parents buy the restaurant featured in the later books.  Welcome to the Grand View, Hannah! (also published as Hannah Is A Palindrome) and You're the Best, Hannah! (also published as Hannah and the Best Father on Route 9W) are thoroughly enjoyable.  Hannah's problems and joys are timeless.

Hannah is an only child and her independence and her ability to be alone are striking.  She climbs up a nearby mountain, where she has a special, secret place that she goes to be alone and to think.

My daughter refused to read the first book because she claimed she did not like books that were "all letters."  (This was a good opportunity to teach her the phrase "epistolary novel"!)  However, having read and loved Welcome to the Grand View, Hannah! and You're the Best, Hannah!, I'm hoping she will be persuaded to set aside that prejudice.  (Interestingly, she does not like books told in diary format either, despite their huge popularity these days.)

Some of these books are out of print and even hard to find at the library, but they are worth searching for!

Do you or your children like epistolary and/or diary novels?

The Flip Side of Reading

The flip side of reading is, of course, writing.  Here, we write a lot of letters.  My kids are forced to write (or dictate, as their abilities allow) thank you notes (3 sentence minimum!).  They write occasional letters to grandparents and cousins.  My younger daughter wrote a letter to Sasha and Malia Obama requesting a playdate (no response yet).  They write letters I call constructive criticism to the government (we got a street paved and a pedestrian walk signal lengthened - by a whole 3 seconds! - and sympathy but no results for a complaint about off-leash dogs) and corporations.  One of my proudest moments as a mother was when, upon seeing an uprooted bus map pole, my then 2-year-old shouted, "Let's write a letter!"

But best of all, we write letters to authors.  Not as many as I'd like, to be honest - often out ambition exceeds our energy or time or quite simply, our interest flags.  But we got confirmation from Amy Hest of our hunch that the subway station in Jamaica Louise James was indeed modeled on the 1 station at 86th Street, which is decorated with mosaics of neighborhood scenes done by local teens.  And recently each of my daughters received a lovely letter back from Miriam Cohen, author of many children's books.  My girls wrote to her about her Mimmy and Sophie books.  They had been particularly intrigued by a blurb in the back that said the stories were partly true and they wanted to separate fact from fiction.  Ms. Cohen graciously wrote back and let us in on some secrets about which parts were true and which were not.

Do you or your kids write to authors?  Which ones?  Have you heard back?