Jeremy's dreidel

by Ellie Gellman

Other authorsJudith Friedman (Illustrator)
Paper Book, 1992

Status

Available

Call number

H HN E GEL

Publication

Rockville, MD : Kar-Ben Copies, 1992.

Description

Juvenile Fiction. Juvenile Literature. HTML: At the dreidel-making workshop, Jeremy's friends think he's molding a secret code on his clay dreidel. But he's really making a special gift for his father, who is blind. How will he get his friends to appreciate his special dreidel?.

Library's rating

Barcode

367

Awards

Sydney Taylor Book Award (Winner — 1992)

Language

User reviews

LibraryThing member STBA
Jeremy signs up for a Hanukkah workshop to make unusual dreidels and creates a clay dreidel with braille dots for his dad, who is blind.
LibraryThing member break
I don't feel the need to write a better summary of Jeremy's Dreidel by Ellie Gellman than the official one-liner, so here it is: Jeremy signs up for a Hanukkah workshop to make unusual dreidels and creates a clay dreidel with braille dots for his dad, who is blind. This story is told on 23 pages of
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the 32 pages. What is missing from the above description is Jeremy's hesitation, the class' acceptance, the classmates' projects, the beauty of Judith Friedman's illustration and the heartwarming feeling you get when you read the whole story with or to your 4-8 year old children. What's even more fun is the instructions ate the back on how to make some nontraditional dreidels creatively, The last pages of the book tell you how to play the game with them and even shows you the Braille letters for what goes no the dreidels: nun, gimal, hey, and shin
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LibraryThing member AbigailAdams26
Jeremy signs up for a special "Different Dreidels" workshop at the Jewish Center in this Hanukkah story for younger children, intent on making a braille dreidel for his blind father. Although some of his fellow participants have interesting ideas of their own - Abby wants to make an environmentally
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friendly dreidel out of recycled material, David decides to make a dreidel that changes color as it spins, while Orit is determined to make an Israeli sevivon, which reads "A Great Miracle Happened Here" (rather than the more traditional "A Great Miracle Happened There") - it is Jeremey's project that grabs the workshop's attention, raising awareness of people with visual impairments, and their needs during the holidays. When the braille dreidel is chosen for a special display at the center, Jeremy's friends assume he'll be thrilled, until he points out that a braille dreidel is of no use to anyone, if placed inside a glass case. Is there a way to highlight all the great dreidels created, without putting them on display...?

Of course there is, and Jeremy and his fellow workshop participants find it in this engaging tale of a young boy and his efforts to create a special gift for his dad at the holiday. Just reprinted this fall, with new artwork by Maria Mola, Jeremy's Dreidel was originally published in 1992 with illustrations by Judith Friedman. It is this earlier edition that I read, after finding it on the Hanukkah display at my local library this past weekend. It is an appealing tale, one which incorporates issues of disability naturally into a narrative - a child making a gift for a parent, to mark a special event - that manages to be both culturally specific and widely identifiable. The artwork is appealing, with full-page color illustrations facing each page of text, save for a few two-page spreads where the artwork stretches across both pages, with the text beneath. A different dreidel is depicted in miniature above each full-page text-block, while instructions for making some of the "different dreidels" in the story can be found in the afterword. All in all, an engaging holiday story, one I would recommend to young readers who are looking for Hanukkah tales that address issues of special needs, and inclusion.
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LibraryThing member SKugle
The main idea behind this story is different types of people and families. Jeremy makes a dreidel for his father who is blind while the other children make their own unique dreidels. This book has a section at the back with instructions for creating your own dreidels which is helpful for teachers
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who may want to use this as a classroom activity. The book teaches children about Hanukkah and about individuals who are blind. The images in the story help depict the text so that children can understand the story even if they do not understand some of the words.
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ISBN

0929371348 / 9780929371344

Other editions

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