Saturday, December 17, 2011

Day 17: Chanukah is Almost Here!

Welcome to Day 17 in our 24 Days of Books. Today we're getting ready for Chanukah (or Hanukkah, depending on how you choose to spell it), which begins next week. In honor of the Festival of Lights, today we're spotlighting the beautiful pop-up book from pop-up master Robert Sabuda, Chanukah Lights, published by Candlewick Press.

With text by Michael J. Rosen, the book follows the Festival of Lights through place and time — from Herod’s temple to a shtetl in Russia; from a refugee ship bound for the New World to an Israeli kibbutz. Robert Sabuda’s striking pop-ups depict each night’s menorah in a different scene, using imagery such as desert tents, pushcart lanterns, olive trees, and a final panorama of skyscrapers.

Michael J. Rosen has written and edited some ninety books for children and adults, including the critically acclaimed The Cuckoo's Haiku and Other Birding Poems. His books have won many awards, among them the National Jewish Book Award, the inaugural Once Upon a World Children's Book Award from the Simon Wiesenthal Museum of Tolerance, and three Ohioana Book Awards.

Robert Sabuda is the creator of many best-selling pop-up books, including The Twelve Days of Christmas, Winter's Tale, Peter Pan, The Chronicles of Narnia, and Beauty and the Beast. He is also the co-creator of the Encyclopedia Prehistorica and Encyclopedia Mythologica series. Since the time he first learned to hold a crayon, he knew he wanted to be an artist: "My bedroom was a constant whirlwind of pencil shavings, drippy paint brushes and mounds of paper scraps. My mother's pleas of 'when are you going to clean up this mess?!' went unanswered." And aren't we happy he kept at it, as he has given us so many gorgeously detailed pop-up books to enjoy.

[Another fabulous new pop-up book in the store is the M.C. Escher Pop-Ups, published by Thames and Hudson.]

As you prepare for Chanukah, remember that Broadway Books has candles, dreidels (large and small), gelt, and a terrific selection of Chanukah books from which to choose.

Here is a short video giving you a taste of the beautiful pop-up book that Robert Sabuda has created, based on Michael Rosen's reverent poem.

1 comment:

  1. Oh, I love Sabuda! Yay, Candlewick! Yay, Broadway Books!

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