Chil­dren’s

A Wild, Wild Hanukkah

Jo Ger­sh­man and Bob Strauss; Jo Ger­sh­man, illus.

  • Review
By – November 27, 2023

Each night of Hanukkah, an allit­er­a­tive, row­dy, friend­ly, group of unin­vit­ed guests shows up just in time for the can­dle light­ing. A polar bear, tigers, armadil­los, croc­o­diles, and oth­ers appear one evening at a time, until they are all present for an unfor­get­table Hanukkah par­ty. They bake latkes and oth­er hol­i­day treats. A group of punk-rock pen­guins spin drei­dels, and every­one has a rol­lick­ing good time. By the end of the hol­i­day, they have all made won­der­ful memories.

Through beau­ti­ful lan­guage and illus­tra­tions, this book intro­duces live­ly char­ac­ters whose faces express humor and cheer. The fam­i­ly mem­bers who live in the house glad­ly par­tic­i­pate in the fes­tiv­i­ties. They also cel­e­brate by read­ing a book — just like us, when we pore over these fun pages.

Award-win­ning jour­nal­ist and free­lance writer, Helen Weiss Pin­cus, has taught mem­oir writ­ing and cre­ative writ­ing through­out the NY Metro area to senior cit­i­zens and high school stu­dents. Her work has been pub­lished in The New York Times, The Record, The Jew­ish Stan­dard, and oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. She recent­ly added Bub­by” to her job description.

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