Celia Gurevitch Jewish Community Library

I would have never guessed that George Washington knew about Hanukkah. I learned from Stephen Krensky‘s Hanukkah at Valley Forge that a soldier introduced the holiday to him in the winter of 1777. This part of the book is true, the rest is fictionalized. It recalls how the soldier explained the history behind the holiday the general drew comparison between the ancient fight for freedom and the modern fight of independence.

The book, appropriate for 8-10 year olds, is lavishly illustrated by Greg Harlin‘s watercolors. Its last page separates the history from the fictional parts. To learn even more about it, listen in to an edition of The Book of Life podcast from 2006, where both the author and the illustrator is interviewed.