Chil­dren’s

Don’t Sneeze At the Wedding

  • Review
By – November 8, 2013

Anna has a very impor­tant job at her Aunt Rachel’s wed­ding. She’s the flower girl, and in her beau­ti­ful pale pink dress, match­ing shoes, and wreath of flow­ers, she takes her job very seri­ous­ly. The prob­lem is, as the book’s title sug­gests, she wakes up on wed­ding day morn­ing with a tick­ly nose. Ah-choo! Every­one, from Anna’s par­ents to the hair styl­ist to the rab­bi, has advice for her, and she repeats their sug­ges­tions to her­self over and over, to no avail, as it turns out. It’s easy to envi­sion young read­ers chant­i­ng the sneeze-stop­ping tech­niques along with Anna in this charm­ing book: press fin­ger to lips, wig­gle ear lobe, whis­per pineap­ple,” tap fore­head, pinch nose, hold breath. The illus­tra­tions are also sweet and, along the way, Jew­ish wed­ding cus­toms and terms (ketubah, chup­pah, the sev­en bless­ings, and so forth) are sim­ply and seam­less­ly includ­ed. This is a nice way to intro­duce chil­dren to this impor­tant life cycle event. Rec­om­mend­ed for ages 5 – 9.

Leslie Kim­mel­man grew up out­side Philadel­phia and grad­u­at­ed from Mid­dle­bury Col­lege in Ver­mont. She is the author of many children’s books, awards for which include Best Children’s Books of the Year from the Bank Street Col­lege of Edu­ca­tion; Notable Children’s Trade Books in the Field of Social Stud­ies; and Syd­ney Tay­lor Notable Books. Kim­mel­man is an edi­tor at Sesame Work­shop and lives with her fam­i­ly just north of New York City.

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