Amanda Peet

Rachel Rosenstein lives in the only house in the neighborhood not decorated for Christmas. Most of the time she loves being Jewish, but at Christmastime she just feels left out. She asks her parents if they can celebrate, but they say no. So she writes to Santa. In a burst of realism that is maybe both shocking and refreshing for a kids' book, this does not work (I mean, of course it doesn't?). Rachel carries on not getting to celebrate Christmas. In the end, she and her family go out for Chinese on Christmas evening and meet many of Rachel's classmates who also don't celebrate Christmas, because they come from other faiths. There's something bittersweet and lovely about this story, though perhaps readers from backgrounds other than my own (culturally Christian and religiously Christian-adjacent) might see it differently. Recommended, but I think I would pre-read before sharing with little people (especially if they believe in Santa and you want them to keep doing so for a bit).… (mehr)

Although she is Jewish, and loves many things about being Jewish - celebrating holidays like Passover, Rosh Hashanah and Hanukkah; observing Shabbat each week with family - Rachel Rubinstein also loves Christmas. She loves the twinkly lights, the Christmas trees, and the store windows of the season. When her letter to Santa, asking him to visit the Rosenstein house despite the fact that they are Jewish, doesn't produce the desired result, Rachel is crushed. Then her family's traditional Christmas-day dinner at the local Chinese restaurant demonstrates that she is not alone amongst her peers, in not celebrating this seemingly ubiquitous holiday...

This new holiday tale from actress Amanda Peet and first-time author Andrea Troyer begins promisingly enough, capturing the feelings of a child who witnesses the wonder of the Christmas season, but feels left out, "like a kid in a candy story with no mouth." I was reminded of Pauline Chen's Peiling and the Chicken-Fried Christmas, a middle-grade novel which chronicles the holiday travails of a young Chinese-American girl who experiences a similar feeling of exclusion at Christmas-time. Unfortunately, the conclusion of Dear Santa, Love, Rachel Rosenstein, which I have seen criticized for its return to feelings of exclusion, rather than a focus on the diverse array of non-Christian experiences at this time of year, felt a little muddled to me. I think the final page, in which Rachel and her family still feel a little bit left out, is meant to be humorous, and can be read that way. Still, although I wasn't bothered by it, and didnt feel, as some other online reviewers seem to have done, that it sent the wrong 'message,' I do think it weakened the emotional impact of the ending, in which Rachel ostensibly discovers that there is a diverse range of people who, like her, do not celebrate Christmas. Reactions will vary, of course, and this is still a fairly engaging holiday tale, one which deals with a theme - feeling left out - too seldom explored, and which is colorfully and engagingly illustrated, so I would recommend that readers give it a try, and see what they think.… (mehr)