Remembering holiday tradition

By Lauren Roberts

Finding personal meaning at this time of the year can be difficult. The emphasis on holiday expectations — shopping, gifts, gaiety, food, togetherness — can feel forced if not balanced with things that are personally important to us. Taking time to just be and to feel a sense of calm and centeredness is essential to enjoying the season. If you have children, it’s even more important. Reading these books with them is the perfect way to contribute to that serenity.

Christmas at the Top of the World by Tim Coffey (Albert Whitman and Company) is the story of Little Reindeer, entranced by the winter stories his Papa would tell him of “a place where the ground rises up to the sky and you are high enough to touch the stars.” On Christmas Eve, “when the north wind feels warm and smells sweet,” he determines to find the place and, with his mother and all the other animals, journeys to this magical place on top of the world.”

Local author Rich Barre has written the second in an annual series of short Christmas books for adults. Bethany (Capra Press), a small, attractive volume, captures the despair of death’s leftovers and explores how meaning might be found in them. Frank, a truck driver, still mourning his wife’s death from cancer, crashes. Alone, hurt and bone-numbingly cold in the snow and darkness, he sees a light and stumbles toward it where he finds helping hands, not least his own.

Hanukkah is full of traditions going back centuries so children grow up with multiple generations sharing what they know. Eve Bunting takes this tradition and turns it into a tender story of life and survival with One Candle (Joanna Cotler Books), a volume as stunning as the story is enthralling. A grandmother’s Buchenwald memories of a hidden celebration of Hanukkah with a stolen potato, a bit of margarine and a thread from a skirt that were used to make a single candle is a poignant tale, the reading of which may become its own tradition.

The Borrowed Hanukkah Latkes by Linda Glaser (Albert Whitman and Company) is the charming story of a stubborn girl, her even more stubborn neighbor and the party that brought them together. It’s the last night of Hanukkah, and the food preparations are in progress. Suddenly, eight more people are coming, and more potatoes, eggs and chairs are needed. As each need becomes apparent, Rachel races next door to Mrs. Greenberg who generously gives her the items, but refuses to join the party until Rachel makes her an offer she can’t turn down.

Kwanzaa (meaning “first fruits” in Swahili) is a unique holiday in that it is indigenous to America and was created in 1966. But in that short period of time, these seven days have taken deep root to become a treasured tradition that celebrates the Seven Principles of unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith.

Habari Gani: What’s the News by Sundaira Morninghouse (Open Hand Publishing) is a unique and gloriously illustrated book that offers a story for each of the seven days (and two preparatory ones). Beginning Dec. 24 when preparations start and continuing through Jan. 1, each chapter discusses the day’s principle through the family’s choices and experiences. The stories are well written, and the use of both English and Swahili words imbues them with a special touch. This is a wonderful book that reads equally well for adults and children, and African-Americans as well as others.

Though Kwanzaa did not come from Africa, Seven Spools of Thread: A Kwanzaa Story by Angela Shelf Medearis (Albert Whitman and Company) moves it there with this beautifully designed book. In this story, the principles are hidden (to allow you to discover them) in this story of seven quarreling brothers in a small African village in Ghana. Upon the death of their father, the village chief announced that the inheritance that was theirs would have to be earned by making gold out of spools of silk thread, and that all fighting would have to cease. How they accomplish this is an enchanting story that encompasses not only Kwanzaa principles but a culture and a way of life.

Lauren Roberts can be reached at

reviews-reflections@verizon.net.