Stars: ****
I’ve reviewed many Hanukkah picture books here before but this one took a totally different route than most.
Howie is a special boy who is uniquely connected to Hanukkah. Every day for the eight days of Hanukkah, a new spike emerges in Howie’s hair until he is left with 9 spikes (1 tall one in the middle with 4 on each side) by the eighth night of Hanukkah – just like a menorah.
At first his parents do everything they can to get rid of the spikes, and then to hide them, but nothing really works. In the end, Howie (by now grown up) learns an important lesson that shows that we are all different and that’s a good thing.
The story is quite cute and as I said, different from any other Hanukkah book I’ve ever seen. It could probably help launch a discussion about accepting people (and ourselves) for who they/we are and how we are all special.
Here’s a video of the author reading from the book.
Check out more at the Hanukkah Howie site!
*Disclosure: I received the product(s) mentioned above free of charge by the company or PR representative for evaluation purposes. No other compensation was provided.
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