An unusually thoughtful account of the events celebrated during Chanukah, touching gently on the ethics of violence in the struggle against injustice, the nature of miracles, and why we celebrate holidays. Interfaith friendship and sharing are modeled in a framing story in which the young narrator and his mother tell the Chanukah story to the son's Gentile friend, their guest on the first night. ``Your Chanukah candles and our Christmas lights will shine across the street at each other,'' says the visitor. Kuskin's prose (as in Jerusalem, Shining Still, 1987) has a spare dignity well suited for telling of ancient and sacred things. Parker's command of his medium—delicately sketched lines and subtly glowing watercolors—is total; he suggests the tumult of battle, the warmth of a family dinner table, and the timeless radiance of the menorah with equal facility. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Oct. 30, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-023617-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1993
A meandering, uneven fire-and-brimstone sermon.
America’s post-war cohort should repent its godless ways before it’s too late, according to Winley’s jeremiad.
Writing in the persona of “Baby Boom Prophet” Jonah Ubiquitous, Winley, a minister at Harlem’s Soul Saving Station for Every Nation, subjects those born between 1946 and 1964 to a serious scolding. His demographic rationale is two-fold. First, the boomer generation authored the culture of sexual permissiveness, abortion, homosexuality, drug abuse, violence, welfare dependency, personal irresponsibility and unorthodox spirituality that he blames for America’s moral rot and the travails of the African-American community. Second, a recap of four decades’ worth of boomer-dominated history, from the 1960s assassinations to Monica-gate and the war in Iraq, serves as a framework for viewing modern times as a parade of depravity, war, natural disaster and apostasy, all of it leading inevitably to Armageddon. Winley’s manifesto interweaves disparate themes, stories and registers. There is a murky digression into a failed publishing venture, a confusing discourse on the structure of Heaven (the fourth heaven is the paradise where saved humans go, while hell itself is “a type of heaven”) and a dash of end-times numerology (“June 6, 2006, represents forty years from the symbolic birth of the Anti-Christ world ruler (6-6-66)”). There’s some religious-right politics—Winley denounces materialism and money-grubbing while defending George W. Bush’s tax cuts for the rich and decides that the Christian injunction to turn the other cheek need not apply to Al Qaeda. And there is a persistent voice crying out in the wilderness, warning that “racial hatred, murder of innocents, political corruption, family disintegration, killer children, home-grown terrorism, violence, greed, lust, and every imaginable evil dwell within the borders of the United States.” Winley’s message is standard Christian Fundamentalist doctrine, but in some passages—especially during a long, affecting parable about a black man who, after an abusive upbringing, lands in prison, where Jonah tries to bring him to the Lord—he writes with real pathos about the moral chaos that ravages men’s souls.
A meandering, uneven fire-and-brimstone sermon.Pub Date: April 30, 2007
ISBN: 978-0595417636
Page Count: 175
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: Aug. 25, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Children new to the language may flounder; those with a handle on their alef-bets already will happily sing along, and...
An effervescent run through the sounds and characters of the Hebrew alphabet, with a free musical track available via download.
Typical of song lyrics transcribed to print, the rhymes and rhythms sometimes sound better than they read: “Nun is for na’al—that’s my shoe. / Samech is for sus. That means horse in Hebrew.” Also, the audio version includes a fast alphabetical chorus that is not included in the book, except once at the end in a spread of untranscribed characters. There’s no lack of energy, though, in the language or the illustrations. Incorporating a large Hebrew character into each paint-and-collage scene, Gilboa portrays a light-skinned, red- and black-haired family in, mostly, modern dress dancing through domestic settings with pets, flowers, food, and finally a Torah scroll (for “Tav”). A closing note to adults suggests ways of sharing the contents.
Children new to the language may flounder; those with a handle on their alef-bets already will happily sing along, and they’ll probably pick up some new words along the way. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: April 6, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-68115-509-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Apples & Honey Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2016
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