Miracle of the Potato Latkes - Softcover

Penn, Malka

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0823412040 ISBN 13: 9780823412044

Publisher: Holiday House, 1995

Synopsis

Famed as the maker of the best latkes in all of Russia, Tanta Golda is unconcerned when a poor harvest leaves her with no potatoes and believes that God will provide. Reprint.

About this title

From Booklist:

Ages 5-8. Reinforcing the idea of Hanukkah as a celebration of miracles, Penn gives us a particularly fanciful version of the holiday legend in which a small amount of oil for the menorah lasted for eight days. In Penn's story, it's potatoes, not oil, that are in short supply. Every year at Hanukkah time, Tante Golda removes eight potatoes from her barrel to make the "most delicious latkes in all of Russia," which she shares with all her friends. When a drought leaves her with only one potato at holiday time, she's unable to have her traditional feast. Instead, she shares her only potato with a beggar, a good deed that causes Tante Golda's luck to change. The book's layout--the text is set in ruled columns, and there are odd chunks of unused white space--is distracting. However, the plot is well devised and recounted with verve, and Carmi's illustrations, with their subdued colors and broad, visible brush strokes, effectively evoke a hardscrabble, Eastern European atmosphere, ripe for wondrous things to occur. Tante Golda's latke recipe rounds things out. Stephanie Zvirin

From Kirkus Reviews:

Tante Golda's potato latkes are the most delicious in all of Czarist Russia; every year at Hanukkah, she likes to prepare a big batch for all her friends and neighbors. One year, potatoes are scarce. Tante Golda has none of her own, so she asks each of her friends if she can borrow just a few. But their cupboards are bare too. Poor Tante Golda is so disappointed--Hanukkah without latkes is like a day without sunshine. Then a miracle occurs, just when things seem their worst, and Tante Golda's Hanukkah feast is saved by divine intervention. The comical illustrations add to the pleasure of this old-fashioned yet wholly fresh story. A recipe for potato latkes, to be followed with adult supervision, adds the final savor. The miracle of Hanukkah rendered in an appealing, concrete way that even young children will grasp. (Fiction/Picture book. 4-8) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Holiday House
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0823412040
• ISBN 13: 9780823412044
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 32
• Illustrator: Carmi Giora