Eva would love to play with oth­er chil­dren, but her fam­i­ly has recent­ly moved and she does­n’t know any­one in her new neigh­bor­hood yet. Still, Hanukkah is almost here and cel­e­brat­ing with­out friends does­n’t sound like much fun. She does have Spark, though, and Spark always makes things bet­ter. Spark is a tiny, imag­i­nary drag­on who bright­ens up Eva’s world. Still, an imag­i­nary drag­on, fab­u­lous as it may be, does­n’t replace real-life friends. Plus, Eva knows that even Spark would like to have oth­er drag­ons to play with. Eva’s moth­er assures her that Hanukkah mir­a­cles can hap­pen, and Eva hopes that this is true.

On the first night of the hol­i­day, the fam­i­ly places a glow­ing meno­rah in the win­dow and Eva hopes that oth­er chil­dren can see its bright­ness. The next day, her neigh­bor, Char­lie, men­tions that he saw the shin­ing light. She tells him about Hanukkah and, when her moth­er makes deli­cious latkes and donuts in hon­or of the hol­i­day, she brings some to Char­lie’s house to share with him. Char­lie and the oth­er neigh­bor­hood chil­dren are inter­est­ed in hear­ing about Eva’s adven­tures with Spark. She describes him so thor­ough­ly and in such great detail that the oth­er chil­dren begin to see him, too. Each child learns to cre­ate a sparkling drag­on of their very own. Eva real­izes that her moth­er is right — Hanukkah mir­a­cles can hap­pen with a bit of effort and lots of hope. Eva has made new friends who will now enrich her life.

Read­ers will under­stand the beau­ti­ful mes­sage — extend­ing one’s hand in friend­ship pro­vides bright­ness and joy. The Hanukkah theme of light­ing up the dark­ness fits right into this sim­ple tale of shar­ing and car­ing. The appeal­ing col­or pic­tures with lots of smil­ing faces and many minia­ture drag­ons zoom­ing through the air will elic­it smiles and laugh­ter. An after­word detail­ing the his­to­ry of Hanukkah is help­ful­ly appended.