2 comments about The Family Treasury of Jewish Holidays.

1. Yes, also for Christians, this book is very informative. There's not mere therory but a marvelous mix of a holiday's meaning in life, biblical and other stories about it, backery etc. I find Christian and Jewish holidays are not too far away different in what really they want to express.



2. This wonderful book is divided into 11 sections for 11 holidays, each section with several delicious entries.

   The book begins at the beginning, with 12 entries on Rosh Hashanah (the birthday of the world) and Yom Kippur. Like all the sections, this one opens with a description of the holidays and their spiritual significance. Next comes a biblical story of Moshe's mistake, whose epigraph explains that there is no Hebrew word for sin. "Het" (pronounced with a guttural "ch") actually means "to miss the mark."

   One of these is the tale of Zuzya, adapted from the Yiddish genius, I.L. Peretz. When Zuzya missed prayers, the villagers claimed he was speaking to God. A stranger laughed. The next day, he followed Zuzya as he dressed as a peasant, walked to the woods, gave an old widow wood and lit her hearth comforting her with the assurance that God would provide her funds to pay him later. The section also gives recipes for honey cake and challah, explains the Shofar blasts, and recounts the Torah portion from Yom Kippur afternoon--the story of Jonah and the great fish.

   The Sukkot section explains significance of the harvest festival, the booth (open to the sky) that must be built to mark it and the 4 plant species that help to celebrate the feast. Readers are treated to a story for Sukkot from Chelm, the realm of fools; one on invisible guests and the importance of hospitality; and a short David Adler tale of a city family whose landlord objects to their hut on the apartment building roof. Two entries on Simchat Torah follow a recipe for stuffed pumpkin.

   For Chanukah, readers will find the music and words to Maoz Tzur (Rock of Ages), a recipe for potato pancakes (latkes), the rules for a game of dreidel--and a delightful Isaac Bashevis Singer tale, Zlateh the Goat.

   The remaining sections are each as rich as the first three. The Tu B'Sh'vat (birthday of trees) section includes a Midrashic tale, Honi and the Carob Tree and a story by Janice May Udry. Purim features a play and a story from Sadie Rose Weilerstein on K'tonton, the Jewish Tom Thumb. Pesach (Passover) includes stories about Moses, the Jewish flight from slavery in Egypt and its significance for every Jew today, and Barbara Cohen's modern-day classic, The Carp in the Bathtub.

   Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust remembrance day, features the most famous entry from Anne Frank's diary and the famous Hannah Senesh poem, Eili, Eili. It is followed by a moving section on Yom Ha'atzmaut, Israel Independence Day, including Brothers, a story on Jewish flight from the Nazis by Shalom Hetkin.

   The book closes with a delightful section on most important Jewish holiday of all, Shabbat. Here we find several prayers and traditions, along with Mrs. Markowitz and the Sabbath Candlesticks by Amy Schwartz.

   This book is a treasure chest. Alyssa A. Lappen

5 comments about Day of the Dead.

1. I have read this book to my 6 year-old daughter ab out a dozen times in the last 2 weeks. The colorful and rich illustrations are awe-inspiring and capture the spiritual side of this Mexican holiday. The story reflects the anticipation of the children as their parents prepare for this day of feasting and honoring passed souls.

   Another plus in this book is the use of the Spanish language. Scattered throughout the book in short phrases, the words can be interpreted by context for the non-speaker.

   I love this book and so does my daughter. We live near the border of Mexico and can attest to the fact that it is culturally accurate and reflects the Mexican culture in a beautiful way. I highly recommend this book!




2. This lively story tells the meaning of Dia de los Muertos--honoring loved ones--with beautiful illustrations, a good mixture of English and Spanish text, and accuracy. Great teaching tool.



3. This is an absolutely magical, lovely book, both in the text and illustrations.
   
   However, the paperback I bought has a flimsy binding that started to fall apart after just one reading. I'm going to get it in hardback.



4. This book feels as though it is illustrated using papel picado techniques, with its geometric colorful shapes that are symmetrical and have black-colored backgrounds. This book charmingly uses lots of Spanish language to teach vocabulary to readers. It uses lots of words that have to do with the customs of Día de los Muertos. The narrative of the story leads the reader from the preparations for the fiesta all the way through the procession and celebration. The book is attractively small and square, which will also attract younger readers without intimidating them, but offers more than enough information for these younger readers to get a comprehensive view of Día de los Muertos.



5. This is exactly what I was looking for to help me teach my children about los dia de muertos. This book is exciting for both my preschooler and my first grader and I would highly reccomend this book to anyone. My children asked to read it time and time again!

4 comments about The Spring Equinox: Celebrating the Greening of the Earth.

1. great way to explain pagan rites to Children. We will use this in our children's circle. Also briefly mentions Christianity in relation to pagan symbols



2. These Equiox and the Solstice books are cute and fun to read, at the end of the book are crafts and ideas to do with your children for the Equinox. I also like all the history it has in it, I learned quite a bit myself!! :)



3. Another reviewer said this book has crafts or ideas at the end. NOPE!!! It is a set of 1 page stories about how different cultures in the past waited for the suns return. I liked the short tale at the end and the page that explains the science of what makes the seasons change.
   Overall, I found this book too boring to hold the attention of my kids. I expected some fun ideas for the season and the book didn't include any.
   
   Some of the facts were fun and the author nicely tied them to modern day.
   "Romans gave presents to their friends and relatives, like we do now at Christmas." The pictures were also nice and bright.
   This book is completely non-denominational, which is a nice change but not what I expected from the title and description. Sadly, I was kind of hoping that this book would be a good introduction to Yule for kids. It is not!
   The part about sacrificing llamas made my kids angry. I don't really like that they now have to bring that one point up every time we mention Yule.
   While this book isn't a total waste, it is not at all what I had hoped for. I look forward to seeing good books that will actually explain the old holidays to kids. This book just doesn't do it.



4. My son has family members that celebrate both Christian and Pagan holidays. I found this book and others are a great way to put all of our traditions in a historical and equal light. We've been reading it since he was four but I recommend it for 1st graders and older doing a few pages a night.

1 comments about Calavera Abecedario: A Day of the Dead Alphabet Book.

1. This book is wonderfully illustrated, and kids love it. It has a great deal of re-read value for kids because the illustrations are so detailed. The Spanish is easy and many of the words listed are very similar to their English counterparts. El Dia de los Muertos is fun anytime of the year, and this book is a visual treat...

No comments about Sammy Spider's First Shavuot (Sammy Spider).

1 comments about Let My People Go! (Passover).

1. This lively picture book is a playful articulation of the Israelites's exodus from Egypt. Constructed as a reader's theater, the book's rythmic poetry entrances as it follows Moses and his navigation through Pharoah's broken promises to the haunting victory at the end of the story. Warm and witty illustrations by Ilene Richard invite the reader to linger on each page. They are especially strong in their depiction of wildlife--I never pictured the glee of "hungry locusts" quite as I picture it now. This is an energetic compilation of inspired verse and charming illustration.

1 comments about Celebrate: A Book of Jewish Holidays.

1. This book was a great introduction to Jewish holidays for my 3-year old. I have been introducing her to the basics of the major holidays as they come along over the past year, but the sweet, simple explanations and pictures in this book help her remember and begin to understand.

3 comments about The Storyteller's Candle/La velita de los cuentos.

1. Great story for those of us that are far from our native land/Buena historia para los que estamos lejos de nuestra patria. Reading this book brought back memories of how lonely I felt the first time I celebrated my birthday (I was born January 6th 3 Kings Day),though I was with family I still missed the gaiety, sounds and even the food and the sharing with so many. I bought the book for my granddaughter Gabby, and she enjoy it a lot. Besides buying the book for Gabby, my stepdaughter Magna Diaz is a librarian and a storyteller, so the story is really very dear to my heart.



2. We children's librarians are used to picture books pandering to us. It's common knowledge. If an author wants some easy library lovin' they just whip up some kind of tale involving a heroic librarian in the hopes of instantaneous shelf space. The most blatant of these (The Boy Who Was Raised by Librarians I am SO looking at you!) leave horrible tastes in our mouths. Yet not every librarian-based picture book is a shameless sauntering hussy. Sometimes, and this is rare, but sometimes you get a book with a purpose above and beyond catering to a librarian constituency. Particularly when the subject of the book is the remarkable Pura Belpre (the only librarian with an ALSC Medal named after her). I was pretty leery when I saw that someone had turned Belpre's life into a work of picture book fiction, but when I saw that the author was none other than magnificent storyteller Lucia Gonzalez, I was intrigued. Better still, illustrator Lulu Delacre has used a melding of print and paint to tell the story of New York Public Library's first Puerto Rican librarian. And as a librarian myself (at NYPL no less) I can tell you that while I am not an uninterested party, I am more inclined to be skeptical when I see that the hero of a tale is of my own occupation. Fortunately Gonzalez and Delacre are up to the challenge and will win over readers, both young and old.
   
   For cousins Hildamar and Santiago, New York is a cold place to live. It is the winter of 1929 and Hildamar has only recently arrived from her native Puerto Rico. She would love to celebrate El Dia de los Reyes, Three Kings' Day, but has she moved too far away from home to celebrate it? The answer comes in the form of a children's librarian that visits her class one day with puppets. Her name is Pura Belpre and she assures all the children that the library is for everyone, children and non-English speakers alike. When Ms. Belpre announces that there will be a Three Kings' Day celebration in the library, everyone wants a chance to help out with the performance of the story Perez and Martina. And when the day arrives everything goes beautifully and the children get to blow out the storytime candle for one single wish all together.
   
   This is hardly Gonzalez and Delacre's first book together, you know. You may be familiar with Senor Cat's Romance and Other Favorite Stories from Latin America, or the highly amusing (and fantastic readaloud) The Bossy Gallito/El Gallo de Bodas: A Traditional Cuban Folktale. In fact, if you haven't already read The Bossy Gallito, drop whatever it is that you are doing and run (don't walk) to the library to pick yourself up a copy. If I were to make a list of required picture book reading, The Bossy Gallito would be mighty high on that list. Because of their history together, Gonzalez and Delacre have a comfortable working relationship. Gonzalez writes bilingual books and Delacre finds ways to illustrate around the English and Spanish sections without sacrificing the look of the story. To often when I pick up a bilingual picture book I'll find a very blocky method of text on one page and a picture on the other. Sometimes this is because the book was not originally published as bilingual and was adapted after the fact, but just as often publishers will show almost zippo interest in getting creative with their words. Delacre, however, knows how to weave images behind and around Gonzalez's text blocks, making for a more vibrant presentation.
   
   As an author, Lucia Gonzalez must have decided at some point that a story about El Dia de los Reyes that incorporated Pura Belpre into the text would be much more interesting than a straight birth to death biography. She may be right at that. In its current state, the book is classified as fiction and will end up in picture book collections rather than biography sections. Kids will pull it from the shelf and be read it more frequently than they would if it was considered non-fiction. Sad but true. There is a brief biography at the end of the story, as well as a Glossary of Spanish terms. I would have liked a small timeline too, if only to get a sense of Ms. Belpre's accomplishments, but space clearly seems to have been an issue. Most notably, the author is donating her royalties from this book to the Pura Belpre Award endowment. As some of you may know, the Pura Belpre Award is given every other year to a Latino writer and illustrator, "whose work best portrays, affirms, and celebrates the Latino cultural experience." I've never known any writer to eschew payment so as to help promote this award's endowment, so this is notable.
   
   As for illustrator Lulu Delacre, she has a relaxed style to her illustrations that initially put me off, I admit. The human faces seemed competent but clunky to my eyes. Yet once I overcame my initial resistance I was able to see some of the clever things Delacre has done with this book. As a note in the back of the book says, the art in this title was created, "with layers of oil washes and paper collage on bristol paper that she primed with clear gesso." The early sepia toned paints in the first few pages set the book squarely in the past. Most impressive, however, is her use of newsprint. I had vaguely noticed that newspaper would crop up as sidewalks, walls, floors or other parts of these illustrations. Many times you wouldn't notice them on a first reading, and only on subsequent rereads would the newsprint appear as books on a shelf or the back of a pew. And many times the newsprint will refer to the scene in which it appears. As the book says, "on page 3, the artwork contains pieces of a timetable of new arrivals into Manhattan by steamship." This is paired with a section discussing how recently Hildamar arrived in New York from Puerto Rico. A news item from San Juan, Puerto Rico makes up the wallpaper in Hildamar's kitchen. Marriage announcements appear in church on a pew. And a weather report lies not far from a roaring fire, while outside the weather grows dark and stormy. You could spend a long time just identifying each newspaper section as you made your way through the book for fun, if you had half a mind to do so.
   
   At New York Public Library I am happy to report that the librarians still close out their storytelling sessions by having everyone in the audience blow out the storytime candle together. If there is any librarian that deserves to be lauded in a picture book, I couldn't think of a better candidate than Ms. Pura Belpre. For anyone looking for a book about a real person with a bit of Spanish to round out the old vocabulary, The Storyteller's Candle should do quite nicely. It lauds without pandering which is rare. A worthy addition to your collection.



3. Set in New York City during the winter of 1929, The Storyteller's Candle is a bilingual English/Spanish picturebook about a librarian named Pura Belpre, who introduces children - including cousins Hildamar and Santiago, who recently arrived from Puerto Rico - to the wonders of the public library. The library belongs to everyone, regardless of whether one speaks Spanish or English, and has the potential to be a community hub of learning and sharing. Created by the award-winning team of author Lucia Gonzalez and artist Lulu Delacre, The Storyteller's Candle honors the real-life Pura Belpre, the first Puerto Rican librarian hired by the New York Public Library System, who actively advocated bilingual story hours, buying Spanish language books, and implementing programs based on traditional holidays. Highly recommended, especially for children's and public library collections.

2 comments about Lighting a Lamp: A Diwali Story (Festival Time).

1. I really am pleased how it approaches its subject matter. Most children's books about international holidays are too technical and long to be used as a read aloud. This book can be useful and provide useful information. If a student wants more they can read a more complex book later. It also helps include an ESOL child's holiday in class, even young kids.



2. Its a great book and worth the money.
   I hope the writer does more books like this simple for kids to understand.

5 comments about Bunny Party (Max and Ruby).

1. I am rating this a 5-star book from the kids point of view. Kids just love the story, memorizing the names of all the toys that attend the bunny party, etc... My kids (a 4 year old boy and a 1.5 year old girl) drag out stuffed toys and a teaset at least three times a week to have a bunny party of their own.

   If you buy this book, you will have to read it a gazillion times. From the parent's viewpoint, it's not the greatest book that you'll ever read a gazillion times to your kids, but it's way better than one of the books that you dread when they say, "Can we read it again tonight?" And hey, it's not our opinion that counts anyway, right?




2. Max and Ruby are my new favorite book characters in books for younger children. My kindergarten students love the short text, colorful illustrations, and of course, mischievous little Max. After reading the Easter book "Max's Chocolate Chicken" all Fall and Winter, I'm finally getting them some more Max books!

   In "Bunny Party", Max's older sister Ruby, throws a party for their Grandma. Ruby's guest list includes her "Rapunzel", "Mr. and Mrs. Quack" and the "Tooth Fairy", but leaves no room for Max's favorite toys. Sneaky Max finds his own way to crash the party with his "Jellyball Shooter Spider" and several other guests.

   I love Ruby because she is such a girl in the toys that she owns and in the type of party that she plans for Grandma. I love Max because he is such a boy in the toys that he owns and in the way he wants to be included in his older sister's party plans. And I love Rosemary Wells for creating characters that children will want to see to over and over again in stories that adults can also appreciate and enjoy.




3. These are such cute books! They reinforce in a simple form the relationship of siblings. My daughter loves these two characters with sassy personalities. I reccomend the board books for the little ones.



4. I have four young children. We love all the Max and Ruby books but this is one of favorites. Max's determination to invite his "friends" to Grandma's party is hilarious.



5. If you have a question about whether or not you need to great all the Max and Ruby books, don't hesitate to snap them up. These are the ones for buying, go get those other books at the library. This one is counting themed but not in any lame way. Max still wins and Ruby kind of does too and Grandma is still happy with everything.
   
   That's what you need to know. Go buy now.