One crescent moon glows in the sky. Two headlights shine through the window. . . . On each magical night of Chanukah, a young boy and his sister count more lights shining all around them! Join them as they discover what it means to celebrate Chanukah in a world filled with so many other lights. And look carefully at each of Melissa Iwai's delightfully playful illustrations, in which an ever-growing number of cats and cleverly hidden objects serve as reminders of each day's joyous Chanukah celebration! This gentle and fun-filled exploration of the meaning of Chanukah reminds families everywhere that the warmth of the holiday extends far beyond the menorah.
Rosen (Elijah's Angel) stresses multiculturalism in this bland venture. For example, on the seventh night of Hanukkah, the child narrator notices that the house of his best friend, who celebrates Christmas, is lit with lamps, "seven altogether"). The focus is so secular that the ending ("I think about... being Jewish in such a wide world of so many other lights") feels hollow. Iwai's (Night Shift Daddy) cheery acrylics contain an unannounced game: the numbers of cats per spread correspond to the successive nights. Ages 3-7.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
reS-On each of the eight nights of Chanukah, a young boy finds a matching number of lights in the world around him to remind him of the burning candles on his family's menorah. The warm, appealing acrylic illustrations and the counting element make this a good choice to share with preschoolers.-E. M.
Greetings and thanks for welcoming me into your home. Since I write books for both young readers and adults, I've cooked up two long-winded paragraphs.
Kids first: So, I'm the author of some four dozen books for children of all ages. The fall of 2011 brings four new titles: MY DOG! A Kid's Guide to Keeping a Happy & Healthy Dog (the idea go-to dog guide for families); a pop-up book with Robert Sabuda, Chanukah Lights, which just received a starred review in Publisher's Weekly: "A stunning achievement"; The Hound Dog's Haiku and Other Poems for Dog Lovers, illustrated with Mary Azarian's woodcuts; and Night of the Pumpkinheads, illustrated entirely with extraordinary jack-o'-lanterns. Other favorites are The Cuckoo's Haiku and Other Poems for Birders; Our Farm: Four Seasons with Five Kids on One Family's Farm (which I both wrote and illustrated with some 400 photographs); A Drive in the Country; Don't Shoot!; A School for Pompey Walker, and Elijah's Angel. (And, yes, there's the Britiish Michael--no "J."--Rosen whose many books are often confused with mine.) For over 35 years, ever since working as a counselor, water-safety instructor, and art teacher at local community centers, I've been engaged with young children, their parents and teachers. As a visiting author, in-service speaker, and workshop leader, I frequently travel to schools and conferences around the nation, sharing stories, poems, creativity, and humor.
Several of my books here show my work as editor/anthologist or illustrator. It has been my privilege to have enlisted hundreds of other authors and artists to create 15 philanthropic books that aid in the fight to end childhood hunger through Share Our Strength's national efforts, or that offer care to less fortunate companion animals through The Company of Animals Fund, a granting program I administered for a dozen years.
Now, for adults. I can start by saying I'm a poet. I went to Columbia from 1979-1981, and received my MFA there. Poems are now collected in three volumes, which are all featured here at Amazon. Moving home to Ohio, I worked as an illustrator (while in NYC, I began selling spot illustrations to The New Yorker and Gourmet magazines); one of my first real clients was The Thurber House, the soon-to-be-restored home of Columbus's native son, James Thurber. For almost twenty years, I helped to restore the home, develop the programs there, and edit much of Thurber's uncollected work. (Those volumes are also featured here.) It was there, I began to edit short story anthologies, commission great writers to contribute to books about dogs, horses, and even VW Beetles. That's also where I started Mirth of a Nation, a three-volume humor biennial that constitutes almost 2,000 pages of the best contemporary humor.
Most recently, I've been working in humorous nonfiction. No Dribbling the Squid features profiles of 70-some of the world's most wayward competitions. (You can see the Web site and Facebook pages, as well.) And, most recently, there's Any Body's Guess: Quirky Quizzes About What Makes You Tick.
Otherwise, my Website has a good deal about my life on the 100-acre farm I share in Central Ohio. Thanks again for reading along with me.
www.fidosopher.com
for lots more about MY DOG!, including recipes, training tips, cool projects, games, and so forth: www.workman.com/mydog
This review is from: Chanukah Lights Everywhere (Hardcover)
Thank goodness, this book is NOT another retelling of the Chanukah story. Instead, the author uses the menorah's lights as a metaphor. The young speaker finds lights in his own world--lamp lights, car lights, star lights--to match the number of candles in the menorah. And the illustrator has painted just the same number of cats, too, so that the pages are utterly engaging. The PW reviewer clearly doesn't realize that preschool- and young readers want something more than a factual narrative. This beautiful book underscores community and family with its rich paintings and words that stretch a young imagination. The candle lights in this story radiate far beyond the page.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
I chose this book for my classroom rather than other Chanukah books because it covers all nine days in a nice clear way. It is a gentle nice story that many children will enjoy and many kids will better understand how Chanukah is celebrated by Jewish people in the United States.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
