Rachel Friedman and the Eight Not-Perfect Nights of Hanukkah

Eight-year-old Rachel Friedman is looking forward to celebrating Hanukkah during her school’s winter break until new classmate Mason makes her feel badly that she won’t have a Christmas tree. Deciding to make this Hanukkah the best one ever, she creates a list of all her favourite Hanukkah traditions: cooking (and eating) latkes, having a dreidel spinning contest, building a Lego menorah, creating a snow Maccabee, going ice skating, singing Hanukkah songs, and getting fabulous presents. Her plans go awry when her dad forgets to buy potatoes for the latkes, older brother Aaron decides he is too old to celebrate the holiday, and her best friend Maya gets sick.

The second in a series (Rachel Friedman Breaks the Rules, 2023), this offering gets to the heart of the “December dilemma”: the omnipresence of Christmas in the predominate culture making it difficult for non-Christians to ignore during a time of their own holidays. To her credit, Rachel gives it her all, refusing to become discouraged as, one by one, each of her holiday plans meets with disaster. Luckily, by the eighth night of Hanukkah, things begin to turn around, and, while it might not have been a perfect holiday, it was still a good one. Rachel Friedman and the Eight Not-Perfect Nights of Hanukkah should be popular, especially with kids who don’t celebrate Christmas.