Celia Gurevitch Jewish Community Library

Deborah Uchill Miller‘s Modi’in Motel, an idol tale for Chanukah combines two places and time periods. On one hand an adult is reading, making up and playing out a story with children at Chanukah in a modern room. On the other hand the children and the readers are transferred back in the days of the Maccabean revolt near Jerusalem. There, in order to support the Jewish soldiers’ fight against the Greek army, they use their wits to disarm and humiliate them. By setting up a “motel” with the sole purpose of making the Greeks uncomfortable, making their horses drunk and via other mischievous deeds they accomplish their goal. While the children have their fun as well.

The pencil drawings by Karen Ostrove are hilarious. I particularly enjoyed looking through each image carefully to find a hidden message. Almost every page has a little note integrated into it, providing additional inside jokes. Because of this I would estimate that this books is best suited for children between the age of 7 and 9. For those of you who are wondering about the title and did not know, the first page explains that the Maccabees came from the village of Modi’in and, yes, some idol smashing happens as well.