“Jackie's Gift”
The Children's
Book Review
"Jackie's Gift" by Sharon Robinson
illustrated by E.B. Lewis (Viking, $16.99,coffee table sized and
geared to Ages 3-5) is a grand slammer, functioning as it does as a
true story of Christmas, Hanukkah and Jackie Robinson. The author,
the daughter of the man who broke baseball's color line, tells the
story of her father getting ready for his first Christmas in
Brooklyn in a house on Tilden Avenue that I knew well.
A couple of doors away from the Robinsons were the Satlows who
befriended the new family on the block against the prejudice of
other neighbors. To repay the kindness of that family, Jackie
Robinson bought them a Christmas tree only to learn the Satlows
didn't celebrate Christmas because they were Jewish. The Robinsons
and the Satlows continue to maintain a lifelong relationship. That
is the slim plot line of a book that is just perfect for the holiday
season, one carefully crafted in its writing and expertly
illustrated.
VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
About the
Authors: Myrna Katz Frommer and Harvey Frommer are a wife and husband team who
successfully bridge the worlds of popular culture and traditional scholarship.
Co-authors of the critically acclaimed interactive oral histories It Happened in
the Catskills, It Happened in Brooklyn, Growing Up Jewish in America, It
Happened on Broadway, and It Happened in Manhattan, they teach what they
practice as professors at Dartmouth College.
They are also travel writers who specialize in luxury properties and fine dining
as well as cultural history and Jewish history and heritage in the United
States, Europe, and the Caribbean.
More
about these authors.
You can contact the Frommers at:
Email: myrna.frommer@Dartmouth.EDU
Email: harvey.frommer@Dartmouth.EDU
Web:
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~frommer/travel.htm.
This Article is Copyright © 1995 - 2012 by Harvey and Myrna Frommer. All rights
reserved worldwide.
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