This is a great historical fiction book about celebrating Hanukkah during the American Revolution. While fighting in the middle of winter, General Washington discovers one of his soldiers lighting candles late one night. He asks the soldier about it and the soldier explains what Hanukkah is and why he celebrates it. General Washington compares the fight of the Jewish people to the war they are fighting at the time. The story is very informative and would be great to use in a classroom while studying the American Revolutionary War. It is really neat the way the author keeps going back and forth between the present time in the story to the historical past of the war in Israel. It also explains why so many people wanted freedom in America, the soldier in the story wanted to fight for his freedom so he could celebrate Hanukkah which was frowned on in his home country.
The illustrator is Greg Harlin and he did a magnificent job illustrating this story. They look like paintings and they show a lot of detail, which is great for the reader, they can visually see what the author is saying. I think that students would really enjoy looking at these pictures and really enjoy this story. This book would really need to be for the upper grades, the younger grades may not fully be able to understand the comparisons between the two wars that are discussed in this book.
This story had the criteria it needed to be noted a great historical fiction piece. While it isn't known if this actually happened, there is evidence that Washington did learn a lot about the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah from his soldiers and this is how the story came about.
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