From School Library Journal
Grade 3-6–A modern-day grandmother shares with her granddaughter the remembrance of a childhood Purim in Nazi-occupied Austria. On the snowy eve of the holiday, a rabbi begins to tell the story of Queen Esther's rescue of the Jews of Persia to a group of children when he is interrupted by soldiers who have come to the take him for questioning. Pleading for a few more minutes to finish the tale, the rabbi is given 15 minutes to continue and, at the conclusion, leads the children out on a snow-covered street and symbolically disappears, wrapped in his white prayer shawl, within the frosty blizzard night. The two miracles of salvation are paralleled as one story is told within the other. Overtones and shadows of the Holocaust are blended with the scenes of the Purim retelling highlighting the main characters of Queen Esther, King Ahasuerus, Mordecai, and the villainous Haman. Dark paintings in muted hues of maroon, black, and gray of a Persian kingdom with Nazi imagery of yellow stars, Gestapo police, and barbed-wire fencing are a backdrop for text that alternates in type style to distinguish the two stories. The juxtaposition of the different times of Jewish persecution in the world's history is subtle and effective. This holiday book can also serve as a good discussion starter about racism and anti-Semitism.
–Rita Soltan, Oakland University, Rochester, MI Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
