What Zeesie Saw on Delancey Street - Hardcover

Rael, Elsa Okon

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0689805497 ISBN 13: 9780689805493

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 1996

Synopsis

Zeesie feels very grown-up indeed! For on this night, her seventh birthday, Zeesie is going to her first package party with Mama and Papa. She even has a brand new dress and a dollar bill -- her birthday gift -- all for herself!
The package party is grand, with great towers of wrapped surprise packages to be auctioned to raise money for other new immigrants to the community. Such wonderful smells, tastes, and sounds, and oh, so much to see...
But as Zeesie soon discovers, not everything and everyplace is meant to be explored, and what she does see that night on Delancey Street leaves her with a new knowledge about giving and receiving.

About this title

About the Author

Marjorie Priceman, illustrator of many acclaimed picture books, has won Caldecott Honors for her illustrations in Zin! Zin! Zin! A Violin! by Lloyd Moss and Hot Air: The (Mostly) True Story of the Frist Hot-Air Balloon Ride, which she also wrote. She lives in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.

Reviews

Rael's (Marushka's Egg) memories of childhood in a tenement on Manhattan's Lower East Side inspire this atmospheric picture book. As a treat for her seventh birthday, Zeesie is permitted to attend a "package party" with her parents and receives her very own dollar bill. She excitedly dresses up and scurries past the tailor shop, the chicken yard and "probably the biggest movie theater in the whole world" to reach the party's music-filled ballroom. Yiddish songs and dancing serve as background for a fund-raising auction where families bid on packages of tasty treats. In the middle of this festive whirl, Zeesie sneaks into the "money room," becoming privy to a very well kept adult secret. While Rael's account of this vibrant social scene is evocative of the 1930s, her bountiful text nearly overwhelms readers with detail, from the names of Yiddish songs to special foods. Likewise, the ambitious money-room plot line slows the pacing. Priceman's (Zin, Zin, Zin! A Violin; How to Make an Apple Pie, see p. 85) mannered gouaches capture the invigorating energy of a bustling, crowded neighborhood, and her scenes of couples twirling on the dance floor and families at table possess a simple elegance. Both art and text celebrate the secure feelings of a close-knit community. Endnotes include a glossary of terms as well as an explanation of the package party concept. Ages 5-8.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

An ebullient immigrant tale in which the members of a community take care of each other without shaming the less fortunate among them. On Zeesie's seventh birthday, her to parents take her a ``package party,'' where elaborately wrapped dinner packages are auctioned off to raise money to bring more immigrants to America. The men at the party take turns going alone into the ``money room,'' where Papa says it's as much of a good deed ``to take what you need, as to give what you can,'' and where no one ever tells whether he's given money or taken it. The room is off-limits to Zeesie, but imagining chests of treasure, she sneaks in. There she sees her beloved uncle, Max, take a few dollars she knows he needs; she is ashamed of herself for spying, but happy that her eyes are opened to her loving community. Set in New York City's Lower East Side in the early part of this century and illustrated with Priceman's atmospheric gouache paintings, this book is a sure success. Rael's (Marushka's Egg, 1993) prose is tight and full of details and humor; Zeesie admirably struggles to do right and learn from her mistakes. (glossary) (Picture book. 5-8) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Ages 5^-9. Many picture books about early immigrant communities don't get beyond ethnic celebration, but here there's a real story, and it grows right out of the culture. The setting is a Jewish American community on Manhattan's Lower East Side in the early 1900s. On her seventh birthday, Zeesie is excited to attend her first "package party" with her parents; it's a fund-raising party where families and friends who emigrated from the same village abroad get together and organize to bring new immigrants to America. Priceman's gouache illustrations in folk art^-style are packed with movement, character, and color, expressing Zeesie's delight in the foods and people and exuberant partying. But then there's a quiet moment, a secret. There's a room at the party where the adults go in, always one at a time. Zeesie's not supposed to enter the room, but when she does, she discovers sorrow and also community. It's the combination of the exuberant fellowship with the secret of individual need that makes a great story. Yiddish words, explained in the glossary, add warmth and joyful detail, and the endpapers include two delicious recipes. Hazel Rochman

Edition details

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0689805497
• ISBN 13: 9780689805493
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Priceman Marjorie
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 40