A CHANUKAH NOEL
A True Story
By Sharon Jennings , Gillian Newland
Age Range: 5 - 8
Charlotte and her family have just moved to France, and she's not happy. She's especially irked to learn her classmates will soon take part in the Christmas holiday—Charlotte's family is Jewish. She enjoys Christmas activities at school, but she longs to bring the "Christmas fun" into her home. When she learns of a classmate’s poverty, she persuades her parents to allow her to "give" Christmas to her family. This is a puzzling tale. Readers never learn Charlotte's country of origin, where Christmas evidently is not widely celebrated (the "true" alluded to in the subtitle is never fully explicated), nor is there any deep sense of the specialness of Hanukkah or Jewish tradition. While many Jewish children may share Charlotte’s envy of "Christmas fun," this won't help them negotiate differences in faith and custom. (Picture book. 5-8)