Chil­dren’s

Dinosaur on Hanukkah

Diane Levin Rauch­w­erg­er; Jason Wolff, illus.
  • Review
By – August 3, 2012
There’s a dino knock­ing on my door, It’s Hanukkah, you see. He’s come to dec­o­rate our house/​And cel­e­brate with me.” So begins this light, cheer­ful pic­ture book that will cap­ti­vate all those lit­tle ones who are crazy about dinosaurs. Writ­ten in short, rhyming pas­sages of no more than four lines, the text is sur­round­ed by full-page, bright­ly col­ored illus­tra­tions that reveal all the fun and mess that a very large, very child-like dinosaur can make as he march­es around the room play­ing Mac­cabee, wraps presents, jug­gles latkes, drips can­dle wax, and final­ly gets shown the door, albeit with the invi­ta­tion Don’t wait a year to cel­e­brate — Shab­bat comes every week!” Through the antics of the dinosaur and his host, a young boy, some famil­iar Hanukkah cus­toms are depict­ed and an atmos­phere of rev­el­ry pre­vails. A short note fol­low­ing the sto­ry explains Hanukkah in terms that intend­ed read­ers, chil­dren from ages 3 – 6, can under­stand. The author is one of sev­er­al Jew­ish librar­i­ans whose books have been pub­lished recently.
Lin­da R. Sil­ver is a spe­cial­ist in Jew­ish children’s lit­er­a­ture. She is edi­tor of the Asso­ci­a­tion of Jew­ish Libraries’ Jew­ish Val­ues­find­er, www​.ajl​jew​ish​val​ues​.org, and author of Best Jew­ish Books for Chil­dren and Teens: A JPS Guide (The Jew­ish Pub­li­ca­tion Soci­ety, 2010) and The Jew­ish Val­ues Find­er: A Guide to Val­ues in Jew­ish Children’s Lit­er­a­ture (Neal-Schu­man, 2008).

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