Chanukah,
0 Chanukah,

Come Read Some
New Stories

The shelves are filled
but are their contents worth reading?

ir

ELIZABETH APPLEBAUM
AppleTree Editor

ou're out there, and they know it.
Chanukah, more than any other
Jewish holiday, sounds the call to
publishers: "Shoppers are looking to
buy. Get books on shelves!"
The question is, are they giving us stories
we'll enjoy again and again, or just flooding the
market with dreary, less-than-innovative, sloppy
stuff?
Here's what to look for — and avoid —
when you find yourself face-to-face with the
inevitable mass of Chanukah books.

The Magic Menorah: A Modern Chanukah
Tale by Jane Breskin Zalben, with illustrations
by Donna Diamond. Published by Simon &
Schuster Books for Young Readers, copyright
2001. 56 pages. $15.

Many readers of Jewish books for children are
familiar with Jane Breskin Zalben's nice stories
about Beni the Bear. The Magic Menorah is .a
very different kind of work and does not fea-
ture Zalben's wonderful illustrations, but it
won't leave anyone disappointed.
The Magic Menorah tells of a boy named
Stanley, who has everything any boy could
want, except a good attitude. Stanley has no
interest in celebrating Chanukah, no interest in
being with family, no interest in anything
except becoming a rock star and doing what he
wants.
Then he goes upstairs and discovers an old
menorah. He begins to rub it a bit, and sud-

denly there appears a genie who looks nothing
like a genie anyone has ever dreamed of.
Instead, he's an old guy in a rather dilapidated
coat; his name is Fishel.
But like most genies, Fishers job is to grant
the wishes of whoever rubs the magic lamp —
in this, case, the unpleasant Stanley.
It won't surprise anyone to hear
what Stanley learns: The things you
imagine you want are not always
what you really want, ancrsometimes .
what you really want and need has,
like Dorothy said in The Wizard of
Oz, always been in your own back
yard.
In The Magic Menorah, Zalben has
managed, and beautifully so, to provide
us with something new (a delightful
story) and something old (a familiar les-
son). The result is a book you will want
to read time and again.

Chanukah Lights written and illustrated
by Judith Moffatt. Published by Little
Simon (a division of Simon & Schuster
Children's Publishing Division), copyright
2001. 12 pages. $5.99.

This book is adorable. Printed on hard, thick
cardboard, so it will happily be used by tiny
hands for years to come, Chanukah Lights is a
rhyming story of a family celebrating the holi-
day:
"Latices are fried in the traditional way.
Yummy scents fill the room as they're stacked
on a tray"
.
The pictures are nice and friendly and sim-

d

11/30
2001

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