August 1, 2015

K-Gr 2-Little Tamar's friends help her decorate for and celebrate the Jewish holiday of Sukkot; she concludes that the best thing in the sukkah is her great group of friends. The self-sufficiency of the neighborhood children is appealing and the emphasis on friendship is heartwarming. The repetitive nature of the story structure works well, although the text is a bit wordy. Readers will learn the basic customs of Sukkot, but the book is definitely aimed at children already familiar with the holiday. The book was originally published in 1988, and this new edition has almost the same exact text, and the illustrations have been re-created in a new medium by the original illustrator. The art of 1988 is typical of its time, with a limited palette and blocks of color that overlap at the edges. The new pictures follow the layout of the old very closely with full color, detailed paintings. While this does more to attract the eye, the new art is stiff and unfortunately reproduces some of the problems of the original, such as poorly proportioned characters and confusing spreads in which the background is continuous across both pages while the action is not. VERDICT The abridged board book version of the story, published in 1999, with a trimmed text and bright cartoon illustrations by Shauna Mooney Kawasaki, is more successful.-Heidi Estrin, Congregation B'nai Israel, Boca Raton, FL

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June 15, 2015
A joint neighborhood effort brings collaboration and cooperation between a young child and her older friends. When Tamar begins to decorate her sukkah, she realizes she is too small to hang the paper apples and too young to know how to write the blessing, so she enlists the neighboring children, each a little older than the one before, to help complete the preparations. Seven-year-old Danny hangs the apples; 9-year-old Shelly writes the blessing; 11-year-old Ari carries the table to the sukkah; young teen Rachel buys paper cups at the drugstore. This revision of the 1988 publication has maintained the original story and updated the bland three-color illustrations with full-color painted details. While the backyard scenes are filled with vibrant hues of a late summer garden, the features of the characters have, at times, an uneven, crude look. Birds and other animals of the yard are drawn with careful detail, yet Tamar looks like a different child in almost each scene despite her consistent red-haired pigtails. Still, the original message holds-a sukkah is not complete until it is enjoyed with friends. An acceptable update with a timeless message. (author's note) (Picture book. 3-5)

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