The Parakeet Named Dreidel
A Picture Book
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
The classic story from Nobel Prize winning author Isaac Bashevis Singer about a family who adopts a parakeet during Hanukkah, fully illustrated and in picture book form for the very first time.
When young David and Mama and Papa are celebrating Hanukkah one frosty winter evening in Brooklyn, Papa sees a parakeet sitting on the window ledge. He lets the parakeet in and everyone is delighted to find that it speaks Yiddish. They name it Dreidel and it becomes part of their family. Many years later, when David is in college, he is at a party one night and tells Dreidel's story-only to discover that Zelda, a young woman at the party, owned the bird herself as a child. Papa and Mama are worried that they will have to give their beloved pet back, but then David and Zelda decide to get married after college, and everyone agrees that they should take Dreidel with them as they start their own family.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this newly illustrated tale from Singer's 1980 collection The Power of Light, a stray parakeet appears at the window of a Brooklyn family on the cold and snowy eighth night of Hanukkah. That's odd enough, but this is no ordinary bird: it loves to play with dreidels (hence the name the family gives it) and speaks Yiddish especially the phrase "Zeldele, geh schlofen" ("Zeldele, go to sleep"). Nine years with Dreidel as a beloved pet pass, and the family's son goes to college, where he falls in love with a "beautiful and gifted" girl who turns out to be none other than the parrot's original owner herself. Newcomer Berkson contributes largely straightforward ink-and-watercolor interpretations of the action, but the wit and wonder that has always animated Singer's matter-of-factly magical world shines through. Ages 5 8.
