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RAQUELA'S SEDER

Name: RAQUELA'S SEDER
Author: Joel Edward Stein
ISBN: 978-1-72842-429-3

by Joel Edward Stein ; illustrated by Sara Ugolotti ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 2022

A lovely, moving tale of stolen freedom and hopes for a new beginning.

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Raquela’s family, Jews in the Spain of Ferdinand and Isabella, must practice their religion in secret or face dire consequences.

On Friday nights, the family goes to the cellar to light candles for Shabbat. Raquela has heard of Passover and dreams of having a seder. Papa is a successful fisherman and describes his work to Raquela. When telling her that to catch a fish, one must be smarter than one and that to be smarter than a fish, one must think like one, he realizes he has the ability to give his family a seder in the open air. Mama bakes matzah, and the family gathers such things as nuts, spices, a wine goblet, and a tablecloth. Raquela and Mama quietly go to the shore, where Papa is waiting in his boat. They sail out to Papa’s secret fishing spot and have their seder as Papa explains the symbolic foods and tells the Passover story of how the Jews attained their freedom. Stein combines the stories of the two historic eras with simple, descriptive language, infusing the tale with hope and conveying an underlying sadness and fear as Raquela and her family yearn to live openly as Jews. Ugolotti’s beautifully rendered illustrations perfectly capture the time and place and tenderly portray the characters’ deepest feelings. The characters have brown skin and eyes and dark hair.

A lovely, moving tale of stolen freedom and hopes for a new beginning. (historical notes) (Picture book/historical fiction. 5-9)

Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2022

ISBN: 978-1-72842-429-3

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Kar-Ben

Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2021

Categories:

CHILDREN'S HISTORICAL FICTION | CHILDREN'S HOLIDAYS & CELEBRATIONS | CHILDREN'S RELIGIOUS FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
A HANUKKAH WITH MAZEL
by Joel Edward Stein ; illustrated by Elisa Vavouri

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THE ADVENTURES OF HENRY WHISKERS

From the Adventures of Henry Whiskers series , Vol. 1

by Gigi Priebe ; illustrated by Daniel Duncan ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 3, 2017

Innocuous adventuring on the smallest of scales.

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The Mouse and the Motorcycle (1965) upgrades to The Mice and the Rolls-Royce.

In Windsor Castle there sits a “dollhouse like no other,” replete with working plumbing, electricity, and even a full library of real, tiny books. Called Queen Mary’s Dollhouse, it also plays host to the Whiskers family, a clan of mice that has maintained the house for generations. Henry Whiskers and his cousin Jeremy get up to the usual high jinks young mice get up to, but when Henry’s little sister Isabel goes missing at the same time that the humans decide to clean the house up, the usually bookish big brother goes on the adventure of his life. Now Henry is driving cars, avoiding cats, escaping rats, and all before the upcoming mouse Masquerade. Like an extended version of Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Two Bad Mice (1904), Priebe keeps this short chapter book constantly moving, with Duncan’s peppy art a cute capper. Oddly, the dollhouse itself plays only the smallest of roles in this story, and no factual information on the real Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House is included at the tale’s end (an opportunity lost).

Innocuous adventuring on the smallest of scales. (Fantasy. 6-8)

Pub Date: Jan. 3, 2017

ISBN: 978-1-4814-6575-5

Page Count: 144

Publisher: Aladdin

Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2016

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ACTION & ADVENTURE FICTION | CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S HISTORICAL FICTION

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CAVE PAINTINGS

by Jairo Buitrago ; illustrated by Rafael Yockteng ; translated by Elisa Amado ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 27, 2020

Celebrated collaborators deliver another thoughtful delight, revealing how “making marks” links us across time and space.

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A trip to grandmother’s launches light-years beyond the routine sort, as a human child travels from deep space to Earth.

The light-skinned, redheaded narrator journeys alone as flight attendants supply snacks to diverse, interspecies passengers. The kid muses, “Sometimes they ask me, ‘Why are you always going to the farthest planet?’ ”The response comes after the traveler hurtles through the solar system, lands, and levitates up to the platform where a welcoming grandmother waits: “Because it’s worth it / to cross one universe / to explore another.” Indeed, child and grandmother enter an egg-shaped, clear-domed orb and fly over a teeming savanna and a towering waterfall before disembarking, donning headlamps, and entering a cave. Inside, the pair marvel at a human handprint and ancient paintings of animals including horses, bison, and horned rhinoceroses. Yockteng’s skilled, vigorously shaded pictures suggest references to images found in Lascaux and Chauvet Cave in France. As the holiday winds down, grandmother gives the protagonist some colored pencils that had belonged to grandfather generations back. (She appears to chuckle over a nude portrait of her younger self.) The pencils “were good for making marks on paper. She gave me that too.” The child draws during the return trip, documenting the visit and sights along the journey home. “Because what I could see was infinity.” (This book was reviewed digitally with 9.8-by-19.6-inch double-page spreads viewed at 85% of actual size.)

Celebrated collaborators deliver another thoughtful delight, revealing how “making marks” links us across time and space. (Picture book. 5-9)