Every­one in the brown­stone on Hes­ter Street is prepar­ing for Hanukkah. A charm­ing, enter­tain­ing illus­tra­tion on page one allows the read­er to peek into var­i­ous win­dows as the author describes the prepa­ra­tions: in one apart­ment latkes are fry­ing, anoth­er shows a meno­rah being pre­pared, and in yet anoth­er, Han­nah Hope Hart­man is prac­tic­ing for her hol­i­day singing per­for­mance. The vivid tex­tu­al and illus­tra­tive depic­tions per­fect­ly set the scene and give a young read­er an excel­lent feel for how Hanukkah is celebrated.

Sud­den­ly, Han­nah comes down with an unre­lent­ing case of the hic­cups. She is afraid she won’t be able to per­form her song unless they sub­side — but they last all eight days of Hanukkah. Many clever reme­dies are sug­gest­ed and tried, but noth­ing works. Han­nah, deter­mined to per­form, finds a cre­ative way to mask them on stage, and her per­for­mance is suc­cess­ful despite her fears.

The book offers a light­heart­ed but impor­tant les­son about per­se­ver­ance, and encour­ages chil­dren who are anx­ious about over­com­ing obstacles.