Here are 100 books that Hanukkah Bear fans have personally recommended if you like
Hanukkah Bear.
Book DNA is a community of 13,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
I am a school and public librarian as well as a writer. I also serve as a member of the Children’s Book Committee of the Bank Street College of Education. We review hundreds of books each year for consideration of a place on our list –The Best Children’s Books of the Year. I've chosen to recommend some lighthearted picture books with Jewish characters or themes because a number of my own books fit into this category. Mitzi’s Mitzvah, Little Red Ruthie, and Dance the Hora, Isadora! are three of my Jewish themed books. Each of these titles has been selected by PJ Library, an organization that sends a book each month to children.
So many Hanukkah books are super serious. I love the way Leslie Kimmelman cleverly uses wordplay to expand the story of the 8 nights of the holiday into something completely unexpected and uproariously funny. The book obviously references a Jewish holiday, but the story will have broad appeal to children of all religious backgrounds and children living in strictly secular households too.
The whole kingdom has gathered to celebrate Hanukkah--but a dastardly dragon keeps interrupting the festivities. Can the Eight Knights of Hanukkah set things right?
A Sydney Taylor Notable Book
It's the last night of Hanukkah and everyone is doing their part for the big celebration, but a dragon called Dreadful has other ideas. He roams the countryside, interrupting the party preparations. Lady Sadie must call upon the Eight Knights of Hanukkah to perform deeds of awesome kindness and stupendous bravery and put an end to the dragon's shenanigans.
When Dreadful eats all the special donuts the baker made, Sir…
An interdimensional mixer with angels and other beings brings unexpected trouble for Malachi and his friends in this smart and uniquely funny second book about the squad of teens from hell.
When an angel comes to his home to deliver a message, Malachi immediately knows what’s going on. The seraph…
I am a school and public librarian as well as a writer. I also serve as a member of the Children’s Book Committee of the Bank Street College of Education. We review hundreds of books each year for consideration of a place on our list –The Best Children’s Books of the Year. I've chosen to recommend some lighthearted picture books with Jewish characters or themes because a number of my own books fit into this category. Mitzi’s Mitzvah, Little Red Ruthie, and Dance the Hora, Isadora! are three of my Jewish themed books. Each of these titles has been selected by PJ Library, an organization that sends a book each month to children.
When lighter-than-air matzah balls send Passover guests floating on the ceiling, a remedy is needed to bring them down. The author’s solution is brilliant and hilarious for anyone who has experienced cooking mishaps. There are so many Passover books that dwell on the story of the Jewish people’s escape from tyranny in Egypt and this is undoubtedly an important story to tell. But there’s also a need for holiday books that are just plain fun. This is definitely one of those.
I am a school and public librarian as well as a writer. I also serve as a member of the Children’s Book Committee of the Bank Street College of Education. We review hundreds of books each year for consideration of a place on our list –The Best Children’s Books of the Year. I've chosen to recommend some lighthearted picture books with Jewish characters or themes because a number of my own books fit into this category. Mitzi’s Mitzvah, Little Red Ruthie, and Dance the Hora, Isadora! are three of my Jewish themed books. Each of these titles has been selected by PJ Library, an organization that sends a book each month to children.
It’s not easy to create non-human characters that are fully believable, but Horowitz does it with the most unlikely creatures–gefilte fish who escape from their jar. Their antics are silly in the best way and the sprinkling of Yiddish terms (explained in a glossary) adds flavor and humor. The cartoon illustrations are spot on!
When five curious young gefilte fish have the chutzpah to sneak out of their jar and set off to explore the world, they are followed by a loud OY VEY!—Mama Gefilte isn’t too happy to see her little ones leaving the nest. But she’s taught them well, and at the end of their adventures, each one proves himself a mensch—making Mama one proud gefilte indeed.
Dave Horowitz’s playful rhyming tale, its illustrations packed with comic asides, will have readers giggling out loud and looking for opportunities to practice their Yiddish—with help from the handy glossary at the end of the…
A satisfying story of rediscovering friendship after time spent apart.
For many years, Hazel and Mabel were inseparable. The two friends made up stories, spent the night together, and shared their snacks. Then, Mabel moved away. As time passes, Hazel and Mabel think of each other often, but they also…
I am a school and public librarian as well as a writer. I also serve as a member of the Children’s Book Committee of the Bank Street College of Education. We review hundreds of books each year for consideration of a place on our list –The Best Children’s Books of the Year. I've chosen to recommend some lighthearted picture books with Jewish characters or themes because a number of my own books fit into this category. Mitzi’s Mitzvah, Little Red Ruthie, and Dance the Hora, Isadora! are three of my Jewish themed books. Each of these titles has been selected by PJ Library, an organization that sends a book each month to children.
This book reflects the author’s own experience as a child during the heyday of Yiddish theater. It’s an exciting story that will engage kids with a slice of history as they imagine themselves taking to the stage and enjoying the thrill of the limelight. So many Jewish-themed books focus on the holidays, so it’s refreshing to have others that just reflect Jewish life in the past or the present.
Rifka's parents are actors in the Yiddish Theater in New York, but one day Rifka finds herself center stage in a special role! A slice of immigrant life on New York's Second Avenue, this is a unique book about a vanished time and a place – the Yiddish theater in the early 20th century―made real through the telling of the true life story of the 96-year-old author as a little girl.
I have been captivated by the emotional power of picture books since I was a child and have spent my adult life reading, sharing, and trying to write the kinds of books that connect to the youngest of readers on a deeper level. In Looking for Smile, I tried to write about the day when I was five years old and experienced real sadness for the first time. This became a story about Bear and his friend, Smile. My favorite kind of picture books are those that make me smile and tear up at the same time. I decided I would share some recent books that have had that effect on me…
A dreamlike book about an all-alone bear who befriends a balloon. When the little bear accidentally punctures his new friend, he blames himself. And now the poor thing is not only utterly alone, but is overcome with sadness and self-blame. The delicacy with which this story treats the difficult topics of shame and self-blame is marvelous. Making a bad situation worse by blaming it on yourself is just so relevant to all of our lives, no matter how young we are and this book really captures that in an elemental way. The tender, emotive illustrations are a perfect complement to the delicate and penetrating text.
I’m a full-time author and illustrator, and a recovering second grade teacher. I visit with tens of thousands of kids at schools every year and love sharing funny books with them. I’ve written and illustrated over 30 published books and know that kids appreciate subtle humor as well as in-your-face hilarity. I love writing stories that will make readers laugh and think. But mostly laugh.
This is probably the most perfect picture book. The illustrations are terrific – full of detail and bold colors. The humor is spot-on and works on multiple levels. Kids will adore Bruce’s cranky (but genuinely kind) attitude while adults laugh at the small asides that ring in a slightly more sophisticated way.
Bruce the bear likes to keep to himself. That, and eat eggs. But when his hard-boiled goose eggs turn out to be real, live goslings, he starts to lose his appetite. And even worse, the goslings are convinced he's their mother. Bruce tries to get the geese to go south, but he can't seem to rid himself of his new companions. What's a bear to do?
4.5 billion years ago, Earth was forming - but nothing could have survived there…
From Cells to Ourselves is the incredible story of how life on earth started and how it gradually evolved from the first simple cells to the abundance of life around us today. Walk with dinosaurs, analyse…
From the ages of 1-4, my son Finn deeply rooted himself into the detailed world of Richard Scarry. These books could be such slow reads that we only needed two of them for long airplane rides. Through Finn’s love of Scarry books, I began searching for more books that delighted with detail. And when I did not see my family’s bicycle-rich lifestyle reflected in books, I created Cycle City.
Just as Papa Bear dozes off into hibernation, Little Bear’s mind buzzes with thoughts about honey. A bee guides Little Bear out of his cave in the forest, and into a city. When Papa Bear realizes Little Bear is missing, he immediately searches for his son. Find Papa Bear, Little Bear, beautiful architectural spaces, and quirky characters on each detail-packed spread. The first in a series, also check out: The Bear’s Sea Escape, The Bear’s Surprise, and Little Bear’s Big House.
A seek-and-find picture book about a little bear who awakes from his hibernation early to follow a bee - because where there are bees, there is honey. When the quest leads Little Bear into the big city and then a bustling Opera House, his father follows closely behind and theatrical hijinks ensue, ultimately leading to a harmonious reunion, not to mention an abundance of bees!
My journey to wildlife storytelling had a very unusual beginning, I started out as a wildlife photographer with an intense curiosity for bears and other North American wildlife. I would pursue these animals wherever it took me and ended up with a large photographic portfolio of these majestic creatures. This quest resulted in remarkable, interesting, and sometimes dangerous wildlife encounters, which I shared in my book, Wild Among Us. My combination of images and storytelling has been a complete immersive experience and has made me appreciate the varied and specific behaviors each animal possesses. These unique adaptive animal behaviors when presented with an interesting adventure story always has interested and captivated me.
This book depicts the death of Timothy Treadwell and Amie Huguenard in 2003 by an Alaskan brown bear at Katmai National Park. The reader is provided a wealth of information but must decide for themselves what really happened. As a past bear observer at Katmai National Park, I camped near brown bears twice, but in the parks designated electrified, fenced-in camping area, which was starkly different from Treadwells’ campsite within the grizzly maze. For twelve years prior, he continued his risky behavior and was unmolested by these very tolerant bears, but his luck ran out and the terrible attack occurred in 2003. This book provides a much more balanced portrayal of the bears than the 2005 movie Grizzly Man. The unique quality of Katmai National Park is the bears have become accustomed to people being there and an uneasy truce exists if you follow the bear guidelines and behave…
With a new introduction on Werner Herzog's film entitled The Grizzly Man
Timothy Treadwell, self-styled "bear whisperer" dared to live among the grizzlies, seeking to overturn the perception of them as dangerously aggressive animals. When he and his girlfriend were mauled, it created a media sensation.
In The Grizzly Maze, Nick Jans, a seasoned outdoor writer with a quarter century of experience writing about Alaska and bears, traces Treadwell's rise from unknown waiter in California to celebrity, providing a moving portrait of the man whose controversial ideas and behavior earned him the scorn of hunters, the adoration of animal lovers…
My name is Susan Marie Chapman and I am an award-winning Children’s Book Author. I have written over fourteen children’s books. I grew up on a farm surrounded by animals and nature and my seven sisters and brothers. Wow!! My goal is to get as many books into the hands of children that I possibly can. You see, reading books, especially picture books, is a way for a child to see the world through the pictures and words of a book. It creates imagination and excitement and fun and questions which lead to answers which makes you smarter. So read, read, read, until you run out of books, which will never happen.
This is a great tale of a Bear named Bernard who thought there must be a better place to hibernate for the winter than a bear den. He has the perfect sleeping arrangement in mind. He wants a quiet, dry, not windy, extra room and some company, kind of place. Well, Bernard thought it would be easy, not so. He tried the frog’s lily pad and it was too wet. He sat in a bird’s nest with a bird but it was very windy, and so on. He finally meets a mouse who asks Bernard to describe the perfect sleeping arrangements. The mouse leads Bernard to the only place that would be perfect for a bear to sleep in. I love the message of this bear tale. It is about being yourself and not trying to be like everyone else. When you try to fit in, you realize that you…
Children will fall in love with Bernard, the sleepy bear with a simple wish, in A Bed for Bear. It's time for Bernard to hibernate, but the bear cave is too crowded, too quiet, and too uncomfortable. So Bernard sets out to search the forest for the perfect bed for winter. But all he discovers are spots too windy, too wet, and too wild for him until he realizes that the perfect bed for a bear was right in front of him all along. With simple text and evocative illustrations by debut author-illustrator Clive McFarland, this heartwarming picture book is…
The summer holidays have finally arrived and Scout can’t wait for her adventure in the big rig with Dad. They’re on a mission to deliver donations of dog food to animal rescue shelters right across the state. There’ll be dad-jokes, rock-collecting, and a brilliant plan that will make sure everyone’s…
Hiking in the Sierra has been equal parts recreation and profession since I’ve been an adult. I’ve worked for the concessionaire in Yosemite Valley, surveyed lakes for rare amphibians, completed a PhD on alpine plants, and, over the past 15 years, written nine books on the Sierra Nevada. I continue to spend every summer obsessively exploring its trails, peaks, and remote lake basins, always excited to see a new view, find a rare flower, or simply see a favorite place in a new light. The rest of the year is spent writing—and reading what others have written, broadening my knowledge about my favorite place on Earth before I set out on the next summer’s adventures.
Rachel Mazur was a wildlife biologist in Yosemite, Kings Canyon, and Sequoia National Parks for many years. A core component of her job was “solving the bear problem”—generation upon generation of bears dependent on human food and ever more aggressive and crafty as they endeavored to satisfy this desire. Her story artfully weaves together the history of bear-human interactions in the Sierra, scientific research on bear habits and diets, and importantly sociology, especially people’s changing perception of acceptable wildlife management and visitors changing expectations of the attractions on offer in a national park. The book is skillfully written and thought-provoking, but also heartening as it ends with evidence that changing wildlife management and visitor actions mean bears are slowly becoming wilder again.
As majestic as they are powerful, and as timeless as they are current, bears continue to captivate. Speaking of Bears is not your average collection of stories. Rather, it is the history, compiled from interviews with more than 100 individuals, of how Yosemite, Sequoia, and Kings Canyon National Parks, all in California's Sierra Nevada, created a human-bear problem so bad that there were eventually over 2,000 incidents in a single year. It then describes the pivotal moments during which park employees used trial and error, conducted research, invented devices, collaborated with other parks, and found funding to get the crisis…
