Chil­dren’s

The Stars Will Be My Nightlight

Jen Halpern; Chiara Fedele, illus.

  • Review
By – October 10, 2022

The Stars Will Be My Night­light: A Sukkot Sto­ry is a sweet tale of a lit­tle boy’s love for the Jew­ish har­vest fes­ti­val, Sukkot. He and his moth­er spend pre­cious time in their sukkah, a tem­po­rary shel­ter that Jews build each year to com­mem­o­rate their people’s wan­der­ing in the desert after they left Egypt for their new homes in the Land of Israel.

The moth­er and the son care­ful­ly dec­o­rate their sukkah and then spend some peace­ful time read­ing inside its walls. Soon the lit­tle boy decides he wants to sleep in the sukkah. His mom strug­gles at the thought of giv­ing up her usu­al com­forts, but she ulti­mate­ly decides to snug­gle in with her young son. Togeth­er, they enjoy the music of the insects and the twin­kle of the stars for a mag­i­cal cel­e­bra­tion of the holiday.

With its lyri­cal lan­guage and soft illus­tra­tions, this pic­ture book is the per­fect bed­time sto­ry, invit­ing par­ents to cud­dle up with their lit­tle ones and cher­ish spe­cial time and tra­di­tions together.

Paula Chaiken has worked in a vari­ety of capac­i­ties in the Jew­ish world — teach­ing in reli­gious school, curat­ing at the Sper­tus Muse­um and fundrais­ing for the Fed­er­a­tion — for more than twen­ty years. She also runs a bou­tique pub­lic rela­tions con­sult­ing firm and enjoys read­ing all sorts of books with her three sons.

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