Celia Gurevitch Jewish Community Library

We have over a dozen books on Hanukkah for children. In the next few weeks I plan to review them all, so by the time Hanukkah starts on December 21 I could easily recommend any one of them to our young patrons.

The first one is A turn for Noah: A Hanukkah Story written by Susan Remick Topek and illustrated by Sally Springer. The story covers all eight days of Hanukkah, during which poor Noah is not only overlooked from the children who wanted to light the candles, but all sorts of other mishaps happen to him. All of those, however, manage to show an aspect or tradition of the holiday, the most important one being the ability of spinning the dreidel. I can let you in on the secret, that by the end all will be well.

The Jewish Multiracial Network lists the books on its booklist, because one of the 7 children shown on several of its 24 pages is of African origin.

The book is ideal for ages 4 to 8. I am a bit beyond that, thus I found the images, drawing a bit too static for my taste. As if none of the people actually are capable of movement and they all seem to smile the same way on every page. Other than that this is a completely sweet little educational story. Topek and Springer created three other books about the same child, Noah: A Holiday for Noah, A Taste for Noah, and A Costume for Noah.