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Elizabeth Applebaum
AppleTree Editor

Chanukah with
Rebbe Alter

OK, so it's a little late for this year.
Just about every child (in the
younger set) who hears him loves
Rebbe Alter, so you could, conceiv-
ably, if you could stand it, play this
tape day and night, any time of the
year.
Rebbe Alter is among the better
(and certainly the more enthusias-
tic) Orthodox Jewish children's
singers around. His songs are
punctuated at every turn with
exclamation points, if not necessar-
ily the most
clever or
original
7440
with
rhymes. In
addition to
the holiday
songs (yes,
that ubiqui-
tous "I Had
a Little
Dreidel" is on
here, too),

AR*

/-

Chanukah
with Rebbe
Alter features
a good num-
ber called "Fire
is Hot," which
teaches children the danger of
those beautiful flames atop the
menorah. 00 41010 11010

0. Better you should watch

reruns of "Three's Company."

*OAP Is this the best they could

do?

1,04011140 Nothing great, nothing

awful.

41010014,11. Try it, you'll like it.

11$0 0400410,110 Meeee0000w!

This is the cat's pajamas.

How Good and
How Pleasant:
Sabbath
Prayer in
Song

Seasons of
Joy: The
Jewish Year
in Song

The Heart
of Ancient
Promise

by Joy Katzen-Guthrie

This is a pleasant series of
tapes by a singer with a
wonderful voice. The best
among them is The Heart
of Ancient Promise, a col-
lection of mostly Yiddish
songs that are so charm-
ing, so heartfelt it's enough
to make anyone nostalgic
— even those of us born
long after the numbers
were popular.
The other two tapes fea-
ture familiar (and a few are not-so-
familiar) songs from the holidays
and Shabbat. Some of these work
better than others.
"Yedid Nefesh," for
example, is such a
beautiful song you
could listen to it time
and again.
"Shabbat Shalom"
(we all sang it at
camp or Sunday
school or day school
or someplace —
you remember the
complex lyrics,
"Shabbat shalom,
hey!" [repeat count-
less times]) is a nice

enough song, but not necessarily
the kind of music you want to hear
recorded.
What these latter two tapes can
do is serve as excellent
teaching tools. If you've
always wanted to learn
Jewish religious songs but
were afraid to ask, buy
these tapes and sing
along with Joy. The musi-
cal accompaniment does-
n't always work (a
Yamaha keyboard that
sounds decidedly contem-
porary and out of place
with Yiddish songs), but
Katzen-Guthrie's pronunciation is
clear and usually quite good, and
her voice couldn't be more lovely.
About the musician: Joy Katzen-
Guthrie is a native of Memphis
Tenn., who began composing at
the piano when she was 4. In addi-
tion to recording cassettes of
Jewish music, she has -co-pro-
duced two original musical
comedies, Once Around
Manhattan and Abraham &
Abraham, and serves as
cantorial soloist for Florida
congregations Temple Shir
Shalom and B'nai Emunah.
To order her tapes, call
(813) 785-4568, or write
P.O. Box 1257, PaIM
Harbor, FL 34682-1257.

I Go To
School,

written and illustrat-
ed by Rikki
Benefeld (Hachai
Publishing)

Trying to find a
really good book
for observant
Jewish children is
like trying to find a
Barry Manilow
song you can listen

to without feeling like you're
trapped in some hellish nightmare
that will never, ever end.
In short — it's next to impossible.
Invariably the illustrations are so-so
at best, and the stories are not
much better.
I Go To School is a decent book
as far as religious children's books
go. (This one even features sepa-
rate classes for little boys and girls.)
The illustrations are just all right, the
text is much better. You won't have
any problem reading this time and
again, but it's not especially memo-
rable, either ("My friends hold
hands and sing a song, I join the
circle and sing along").
If you're looking for a great Jewish
children's book, try instead The Little
Leaf, by Chana Sharfstein, also
published by Hachai, a gentle story
that speaks lovingly of God's power
and care. 41 ► 4 1041, 1 /2

The
Secret
Diary,

by Elizabeth
Koda-Callan
(Workman
Publishing)

If you know a
girl who has
always wanted
to write down
her secret thoughts, buy her a copy
of this delightful diary. It has an illus-
tration on the cover with a girl
wearing a heart key to unlock this
very diary which, in addition to
bearing blank pages, is filled with
fun questions girls love to answer:
"A Gift I Would Like To Receive..."
"My Favorite Thing To Do During
The Holidays..." "A Party I Would
Secretly Like To Attend..."
The Secret Diary is part of a
series that includes familiar works
like The Silver Slippers and The

Magic Locket. WINPAINIP

1/23 .

1998

97