i.+Children's+Literature


 * I Love Hanukkah** by Marilyn Hirsh is about a boy who is too young to remember too much about his last Hannukkah. So his grandfather comes over to tell him the history. He tells the boy about when most Jews were shepards, and farmers and were ruled by the king, whose name was Antiochus. But Antiochus was a bad king because he told the Jews to worship him instead of their God. Then, one day, a man named Mattathias brought the village people to a hill to hide from the king. Mattathias's son, Judah Maccabee, then taught the Jews how to fight. They surprised the king and his soldiers and they won many of the battles. The young boy's grandfather told him how the Jews had believed that God had helped them, so they cleaned the temple but only found one jug of oil for the menorah. But a miracle happened and the menorah burned for eight whole days. The young boy's grandfather then explained why there are nine candles on the menorah. Eight of them are for the eight days the manorah burned and the other one is the "helper candle" which is used to light all the other candles. After the story, they light the candle and sing a blessing. Then, they eat potato pancakes, play Dreidel, and open presents. We picked this book because it tells the story of how Hanukkah started and also tells how it's celebrated.