The Horn Book Guide

PICTURE BOOKS

Newman, Leslea

Runaway Dreidel!

32 pp. | Holt | October, 2002 | Trade ISBN 0-8050-6237-8 $$17.95

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Kyrsten Brooker. "'Twas the first night of Chanukah and on the fifth floor, / There was holiday hustling and bustling galore." Newman playfully uses the rhythmic pattern of Moore's Christmas poem in this variant of "The Gingerbread Man." A runaway dreidel whirls through the house, the city, and the countryside, finally spinning up to the sky. The narrator, his family, and townspeople are illustrated in warm colors and set in a traditional Jewish neighborhood.

Reviewer: Amy Kellman