Author:
Amy Goldman Koss, Diane De Groat (Illustrator)

What age group is this book written for?
8-14

Category:
Fiction

Brief Summary:
Marla Feinstein is the only Jewish kid in her fourth-grade class, and is tired of feeling like an outsider, receiving blue and white paper to make projects with, while everyone else is given jolly green and red. Her best friend Lucy is very understanding, but Marla is a little jealous of Lucy's family and their decorations and plans. To add to her concerns over Christmas, Marla's father is out of town during Hanukkah, occuring at the same time as Christmas this year, and she cannot persuade her mother to take anything seriously. Marla's mother never makes more than a half-hearted attempt at lighting the Menorah and telling the old stories. She gives Marla six rolls of Scotch tape for her first night's gift. After failing in the attempt to make her green plastic dreidel spin by weighting it down with Cheerios, Marla goes to the only other Jewish people she knows; the couple who run the deli, to find out what Hanukkah is really about, and how she and her family can inject a little spirit into their holiday. Children of any heritage will enjoy Marla's funny struggles at finding out who she is.