The Horn Book Guide

PICTURE BOOKS

Singer, Isaac Bashevis

The Parakeet Named Dreidel

32 pp. | Farrar | September, 2015 | Trade ISBN 978-0-374-30094-4 $17.99
New ed. (1980)

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Suzanne Raphael Berkson. In this short story (from The Power of Light: Eight Stories for Hanukkah, rev. 2/81) repackaged as a picture book, a mysterious Yiddish-speaking parakeet flies to a Jewish family's window on Hanukkah and promptly earns the name Dreidel. This feels like a story a reminiscent zayde might share. Lots of golden light in the cheerful, loose-lined illustrations creates a sense of Hanukkah's warmth.

Reviewer: Shoshana Flax | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2015