Publishers Weekly
07/29/2024
A Hanukkah menorah wasn’t lit inside the U.S. White House until 2001, per this historical-leaning work’s back matter, during the first of ceremonies that employed borrowed menorahs until 2022. This picture book gives a backstory to the first Jewish artifact in the White House permanent collection, fashioned from a wooden beam stored during the residence’s Truman-era renovations. With earnest prose and reportorial, pencil- and watercolor-style images, Boxer and Moore cast that beam as this picture book’s narrating protagonist, imbuing it with a perspective that explicitly connects its own arc of resilience and renewal (“I was supposed to be destroyed,” it repeats) with the history of Jewish people during WWII. “I am the centerpiece of the story of the oil that lasted longer than anyone expected,” the beam-turned-menorah says, “a beam of light, a reminder of the miracle, a symbol of strength.” An author’s note and bibliography conclude. Ages 4–8. (Oct.)
From the Publisher
"With earnest prose and reportorial, pencil- and watercolor-style images, Boxer and Moore cast that beam as this picture book’s narrating protagonist, imbuing it with a perspective that explicitly connects its own arc of resilience and renewal with the history of Jewish people during WWII. "
—Publishers Weekly
School Library Journal
09/01/2024
Gr 2–5—"I was supposed to be destroyed." This is the opening line and the refrain of this provocative story of a White House beam removed during the 1952 rebuild. The beam recounts history it witnessed: 400 rabbis coming to the White House in 1943 to ask President Roosevelt to allow European Jews entry (they were turned away), a piano leg coming through the ceiling in 1948, and the partial demolition and rebuild of the White House. The beam was "Salvaged. Sent to a storage warehouse. And there I sat, through thirteen Presidents." The beam was pulled from storage and made into a menorah, becoming in 2022 "the first Jewish artifact added to the White House collection./ I can never be removed." Color illustrations, most spreads, show the White House falling apart, but there is more: one drawing shows lit candles on a deep blue background with an anguished person in the corner for the Jews killed in the Holocaust. A variety of different menorahs are shown. A brief author's note on menorahs at the White House and a short bibliography is provided. Repetitive phrases and strong statements are in bold print. The story of the beam, by itself, is compelling even without the additional information woven in about World War II atrocities and the Holocaust, but it all blends with the theme of survival and renewal. VERDICT An interesting and informative story focusing on both the history of the White House and menorahs. A good first buy.—Tamara Saarinen
