Alan Silberberg

This is a story about Milo, a 12-year-old boy coming to grips with the death of his mother. It is sad, yes, but also pretty silly because even though Milo is deeply depressed about life without Mom, he's also funny and irreverent about pretty much everything else. So this book jumps from goofy to heartbreaking and back again many times.

This will definitely be compared to [b:Diary of a Wimpy Kid|389627|Diary of a Wimpy Kid (Diary of a Wimpy Kid, #1)|Jeff Kinney|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255573105s/389627.jpg|2617009] because A#1 Milo is a wimpy kid and B#2 the text is peppered with cartoons. I would totally recommend it to Wimpy Kid fans, which is pretty much every kid in the world, right?… (mehr)

It's chaos at Latke's house over the course of the eight nights of Hanukkah in this new holiday board book for the youngest children. Bright colorful artwork is paired with a simple text describing how Latke lights the menorah the first night, how applesauce and sour cream get into an argument on the second, and how the spinning dreidels make themselves dizzy on the third. So it goes, until the eighth night, when the house is full of light...

After finding author/illustrator Alan Silberberg's 2018 Meet the Latkes unexpectedly delightful—humorous picture books can be hit or miss with me, but I found that one hilarious!—I was excited to discover that he had a new Hanukkah book out this year (2023). I read the digital edition, although I understand that the print copy is in board book format. I wasn't as impressed with this one, as I was with Meet the Latkes, but then, there's not really much of a story here, just a string of zany Hanukkah antics, building up to the eighth night of the holiday. That said, for the intended audience of infants and very young children, I think the bright colors and counting structure here will work just fine, and it is to them that I would recommend the book.… (mehr)

As a Jewish educator, this is a great book for reviewing the story of Hanukkah (or Ḥannukah, if we are being grammatically accurate in transliteration). In the book, a family of latkes (a fried potato dish we eat during Hanukkah) is telling the story of the Maccabees to their children. The kids don't understand the name "Maccabees" and assume that the story is about "mega bees" who defeated the Greeks. This is a cute and attention-grabbing technique, suitable for students no matter their familiarity (or lack) with the story of Hanukkah. (One of the latke-children keeps objecting that there were no bees in the story). The end of the book gives an accurate overview of the story of Hanukkah, minus any references to bumble bees. This is a fun and educational book which I ordered for my personal collection after seeing it at a scholastic book fair.… (mehr)