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?

Books for the (Jewish) Holidays

While there are many, many books available about Jewish holidays, I have found most of them merely adequate.  Since my children and I are already familiar with the holidays, I'm usually not looking for books that explain their historical background or how to observe them.  I'm really seeking books that simply take place during a certain holiday, transmit Jewish values and, most importantly, tell a good story.  Here are my two favorites and one series I just can't stand.

In Barbara Cohen's The Carp in the Bathtub, Leah, now an old woman, relates how, as a child she and her brother Harry once tried to rescue the eponymous carp from his destined fate - to become gefilte fish which will be eaten at the Passover seder.  Although she and Harry fail in their mission (vegetarians and those with sensitive children, consider yourselves warned), the book is delightful.  Bringing details of the early-twentieth-century Jewish immigrant experience to life (Leah and Harry have a bathroom in their apartment, rather than down the hall, meaning that they have the burden of bathing twice a week, rather than once, at least until the carp takes up residence), the book has humor and warmth (and, some - but not me - might say, verges on kitsch).  It is also wordier and a bit longer than most picture books, almost a picture novella.  That and the subject matter make it more appropriate for kids approximately ages 5 and up.

In my other favorite, The House on the Roof by David Adler, an old man keeps dragging objects he collects off the street into his apartment, without the reader (or his landlady) knowing why.  Each time his landlady spots him with his haul, she yells at him.  When he brings his grandchildren up to the building's roof to see the sukkah he built with the ephemera, she follows him there and is not pleased to discover that he's erected a structure on her roof.  In fact, she is so offended that she takes the old man to court, insisting he has no right to build anything on her property.  The old man begs the court's mercy, explaining that he built the sukkah so he could observe the holiday of Sukkot which  lasts only another 4 days.  The judge agrees with the landlady.  "You're right," he tells her.  "It is your building."  Then, in a stroke of Solomonic wisdom, he tells the old man "I'll give you just ten days to take your sukkah down."  With its courtroom setting (which I love, both because I work in one and because it's not only the only depiction of a courtroom in a picture book that I know of, but one of the few depictions of a workplace) and sophisticated ending, it's also for the 5-and-up set.  It would be great paired with a visit to Sukkah City, an annual exhibit of sukkahs created by artists and architects which meet the technical, religious-legal requirements of sukkah-dom but which look nothing like traditional sukkahs.  My whole family went to the first Sukkah City in 2010 and we were all fascinated, kids included.

Now, for my least favorite Jewish holiday books: the popular Sammy Spider series.  They are pedantic, condescending and simply boring.  I especially can't stand it when, every time Sammy expresses interest in celebrating a Jewish holiday along with the Shapiros, whose home he and his mother inhabit, she scolds him, "Spiders don't celebrate [insert holiday here].  Spiders spin webs."


What is your favorite Jewish holiday book?

To Get All Meta on You: Books about Books, Libraries and Reading

Because of my aforementioned library addiction, I hold books that mention libraries and books, and those that feature readers, especially dear.  One of my favorites is the All-of-a-Kind Family series by Sydney Taylor.  This series follows the lives of five sisters growing up on the Jewish Lower East Side (where I grew up!) at the turn of the last century.  All but the first book are out of print, but many used copies can be found online.  There are five books in the series.

One week Sarah, the responsible, studious middle child, loses her book.  She is terrified to tell the librarian and devastated to hear of the cost to replace it.  Don't worry - it all works out in the end.  Not only that, but both the librarian and Ella, the oldest daughter, find love in or through the library.  Ella's beau (a much better word than boyfriend, don't you think?) actually introduces himself by sending her a note in a book she had hidden in the stacks.  What could be more romantic?

But the best book-within-a-book reference in this series comes in the third book (confusingly called More All-of-a-Kind Family, while the second is All-of-a-Kind Family Downtown), when Henny finds Anne of Avonlea by Lucy Maud Montgomery the then-just-published sequel to Anne of Green Gables at the library one day. This reference sent me running to Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_of_green_gables. 

Somehow I'd always thought that the Anne books had been written in the 1920s at least, which would have post-dated Henny's discovery.  But no, the first was published in 1908, with Anne of Avonlea coming out just a year later.  So that means some of my favorite fictional characters were enjoying another one of my favorite fictional characters - how cool is that!

Although this blog is geared more toward younger audiences (at least for now, while my own children are young), I can't write a post about books about books, reading and libraries without mentioning one for older readers, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. 

My fruitless search for an image of the edition I have (how attached we can get to the edition and cover art of a book! - only the link to All-of-a-Kind Family Downtown shows the cover art I remember from that series) did lead me to another nice discovery: that Anna Quindlen, one of my favorite essayists and novelists who has written her own book-length essay on the joys of reading http://www.amazon.com/How-Reading-Changed-My-Life/dp/0345422783/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1293227557&sr=1-1, has written a foreword to this book http://www.amazon.com/Grows-Brooklyn-Betty-Quindlen-Foreword/dp/898840436X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1293227517&sr=1-2.  Being me, I promptly put a library hold on this edition.

There are many lovely moments in the book describing Francie, the protagonist, taking joy in books and words and in the library itself, but the description of how Francie learns to read is simply perfect: 

"Oh, magic hour when a child first knows it can read printed words!

For quite a while, Francie had been spelling out letters, sounding them and then putting the sounds together to mean a word.  But one day, she look at a page and the word mouse had instantaneous meaning.  She looked at the word and the picture of a gray mouse scampered through her mind.  She looked farther and when she saw "horse," she heard him pawing the ground and saw the sun glint on his glossy coat.  The word "running" hit her suddenly and she breathed hard as though running herself....

From that time on, the world was hers for the reading.  She would never be lonely again..."

And there you go.