The fragility of a child’s lovingly crafted clay menorah highlights the symbolism of the candle-lighting ritual.
At school, Sadie works hard to carefully sculpt and paint her clay menorah, featuring a raised, centered candle holder for the shamas (lighting candle) and flanked on either side by four lower candle holders. Proud of her blue-and-pink work of art, Sadie is eager to show it to her mother on the last day of the week. In her rush, she trips and drops the menorah, which breaks into “a million, zillion pieces.” Through tears and disappointment, Sadie and her mom realize that while the shattered menorah is not repairable, the shamas remains perfectly intact and becomes “Sadie’s Super Shammash” to light all the menorahs in the home each year. Korngold and Fortenberry’s Sadie, of Sadie’s Sukkah Breakfast (2011), is adaptable. She subtly demonstrates the importance of the ninth candle on a menorah, which is always set apart as the one to kindle the flame on each new candle each night. A combination of gouache and scratch art details the sequence of scenes and emotions, which range from happy anticipation to surprised dismay to satisfaction and pride.
A lovely, realistic examination of one specific aspect of the holiday, this will spark discussion as well as inspiration. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-7613-6493-1
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Kar-Ben
Review Posted Online: Aug. 14, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2013
Did you like this book?
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Magical moonbeams awaken a pumpkin patch to raucous Halloween-season revelry.
A moonbeam illuminates and energizes a smiley-faced pumpkin sitting alone on a stair; it promptly takes off to find a friend with whom to have a good time. An entire pumpkin patch, also sparked by the magical moon, instantly comes alive. And what merriment all the grinning gourds get up to! Their playful shenanigans include piling high on top of one another, bouncing on a trampoline, dancing, marching, and drumming, wearing costumes, and competing in games. They even engage in activities usually reserved for other holiday-themed icons—flying on brooms and making magic, for instance. As dawn approaches, the pumpkin leader escorts the cavalcade back home. At sunrise, each one takes up residence on a different house’s front porch and awaits that evening’s moonbeams to work their magic again. Liveliness and good cheer abound in this frisky rhyming tale in which the perennial holiday symbols naturally take center stage. Perky couplets that read and scan very well appear on most pages and are accompanied by energetic, expressive illustrations that highlight vivid oranges, yellows, blues, purples, and greens with touches of other bright shades.
Readers will delight in discovering the joyous time pumpkins have when it’s Halloween. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: July 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-338-56332-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Cartwheel/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2020
Did you like this book?
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
You may know the Easter Bunny, but get ready to meet Peter Easter Frog!
Peter loves Easter, and he’s not going to let the fact that he’s a frog and not a bunny stop him, especially when he’s so good at hopping! He looks absolutely delighted to be hopping around delivering Easter eggs. As he hops along, so does a repeated refrain, which always begins with two words ending with “-ity” coupled with “Easter’s on its—” (“Squishity, squashity, Easter’s on its—”; “Yippity, yappity, Easter’s on its—”); each page turn playfully upends the expected conclusion of the line. Karas’ cheery art portrays a growing array of animals: a turtle decked out in lipstick and a spiffy Easter bonnet, a cow with flower choker necklace, and a sheepdog and a chipmunk sans finery. As Peter gives out colorful, patterned Easter eggs to the other animals, they are, at first, shocked to see an Easter frog but soon join him in his charitable mission to spread Easter cheer. The moment when the cow responds to the dog’s challenge that she is not a cow-bunny by pointing out its own breed as a “sheepdog” may elicit laughs, especially from adult readers. When the group finally meets the real Easter Bunny—hilariously, at the end of a dark tunnel—it seems that things may go awry, but all ends hoppily, happily, and inclusively. The text does not use dialogue tags, instead setting narration and dialogue in separate, distinctive typefaces; unfortunately, this design is not consistently applied, which may confuse readers. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-22-inch double-page spreads viewed at 26.8% of actual size.)
Charming Easter fun. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4814-6489-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Caitlyn Dlouhy/Atheneum
Review Posted Online: Jan. 13, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
Did you like this book?
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2021 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
