"The Yankee at the Seder" by Elka Weber, Illustrated by Adam Gustavson

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Bibliographic Citation

Title: The Yankee at the Seder

Author: Elka Weber

Illustrator: Adam Gustavson

Year of Publication: 2009

Publisher City: Berkeley

Publisher: Tricycle Press

ISBN: 9781582462561

Author Website: http://www.elkaweber.com/

Illustrator Website: http://www.adamgustavson.com/

Media Used for Artwork: Watercolor, Gouache

Awards

·         Publishers Weekly Starred Review

·         NCSS/CBC Notable Children’s Trade Books in the Field of Social Studies

·         Bulletin Blue Ribbon Book

·         Association of Jewish Libraries Sydney Taylor Book Award, 2010

Annotation

The Civil War has ended and Passover is about to begin.  Jacob is resentful of the North.  But when an unexpected guest, a Jewish Yankee, comes to Passover everyone at the dinner must rethink how they observe past enemies.

Personal Reaction

                This picturebook provides readers with a good example of how views vary around the world, even among people of the same religion/political view/etc.  Readers can use this book as a starting off point to discuss how differing cultures can still unite among some commonalities.  Also, this story teaches readers about the Jewish religion, also expanding their understanding of other cultures.  The fact that this story is based on an actual event is quite interesting and makes the story all the more impactful.  “The Real Story” at the end of the book shows the amount of research conducted by Weber.  It was nice to even see actual photographs of Corporal Levy’s saber that was such an important part of the story.

                The illustrations do a wonderful job of conveying the emotions of the characters that are being described in the text.  One of my favorite illustrations is of Levy, Jacob’s father and grandfather’s boots, showing their desire to not start a confrontation if they discussed the war.  I agree with the narrator when he stated “So it was something to see as they all tried to make polite conversation without talking about the one subject that was most on their minds,” especially because of the illustration.

Use of sophisticated language: The author provides definitions of terms used for Passover at the beginning of the book.

Use of personification:
Example: “If a stray crumb did somehow find its way into our house, it would just die of loneliness.”