A festive holiday celebration.
Jews in Morocco celebrate the end of Passover.
Miriam and her family live in Fès in Morocco, and as Passover concludes, she and her mother walk to the house of a Muslim family for flour. Miriam meets Jasmine, a girl her own age, and watches as her mother gifts Jasmine’s mother with a jar of fig jam in exchange for a sack of flour before inviting the family to join them for the Mimouna celebration. They hurry home, where Miriam helps set a table filled with food and symbols of good fortune, such as five gold coins. The highlights of the table are the moufleta that her mother fries. The paper-thin pancakes are spread with butter and jam and are a special treat at the end of a week of eating unleavened matzo. It is also the custom for families to go from house to house partaking of festive dinners and sharing in blessings for the coming year, and Jasmine joins in. Jasmine then invites Miriam to her upcoming Ramadan party, but Miriam declines. Her family is planning to immigrate to Israel, as indeed they do. The Mimouna holiday is relatively recent, about 250 years old, and its origins are unclear. There are currently celebrations in Israel and in New York. Families unfamiliar with Mimouna will welcome the discovery. Those whose cultures involve frying bread and visiting neighbors on holidays will also find connections here. The colorful illustrations are adorned with decorative patterns, and, yum, a recipe is included. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10.6-by-16.6-inch double-page spreads viewed at 58.6% of actual size.)
A festive holiday celebration. (afterword) (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Nov. 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-77306-397-3
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Groundwood
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2020
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies.
Pigeon finds something better to drive than some old bus.
This time it’s Santa delivering the fateful titular words, and with a “Ho. Ho. Whoa!” the badgering begins: “C’mon! Where’s your holiday spirit? It would be a Christmas MIRACLE! Don’t you want to be part of a Christmas miracle…?” Pigeon is determined: “I can do Santa stuff!” Like wrapping gifts (though the accompanying illustration shows a rather untidy present), delivering them (the image of Pigeon attempting to get an oversize sack down a chimney will have little ones giggling), and eating plenty of cookies. Alas, as Willems’ legion of young fans will gleefully predict, not even Pigeon’s by-now well-honed persuasive powers (“I CAN BE JOLLY!”) will budge the sleigh’s large and stinky reindeer guardian. “BAH. Also humbug.” In the typically minimalist art, the frustrated feathered one sports a floppily expressive green and red elf hat for this seasonal addition to the series—but then discards it at the end for, uh oh, a pair of bunny ears. What could Pigeon have in mind now? “Egg delivery, anyone?”
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781454952770
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Union Square Kids
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among
Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
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