| If you are a fan of the All-Of-A-Kind Family series, this might be a book to add to your collection. It is a picture book with slightly more text than usual, but in the vein of the original tales as Emily Jenkins has tried to keep to the spirit of a beloved series. And Paul O. Zelinsky also has tried to keep the feel of the original illustrations while putting his own spin on them. In an afterwards he mentions his influences and reasoning behind what he has done.
The story is basic: the youngest wants to help prepare for the families Hanukkah celebration but is too little. This leads to her having a meltdown and taking a timeout. But it is her father who has the perfect solution to the problem. Jenkins descriptive pieces of information throughout the book help move the story along and make it unique. The story of “the baby unable to help” has been done before, but Jenkins makes it fresh. That classic feeling of Sydney Taylor’s original also comes out (or I must assume as I have never read the series but know of books from that era and what I know of the books from others and the afterwards here). Like Taylor’s series, this is a book that shows the everyday of a Jewish family to people of other faiths. |
There are lots of great extras about Hanukkah and the history of why certain things are done a special way in All-of-a-Kind Family Hanukkah, among other extras at the end. These pieces of information fill out a sweet, but simple, story. I think they are more interesting to me than the story itself.
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