The Count's Countdown

Sesame Street’s famous reg­u­lars and Hanukkah meet in a cute sto­ry that deliv­ers the hol­i­day com­bined with num­bers up to eight. Grover hosts a latke par­ty for Israeli mup­pet friends; the Count loves the idea; he includes him­self because eight is the per­fect Hanukkah num­ber. The wordy sto­ry presents the hol­i­day cus­toms of can­dle light­ing, drei­del spin­ning, latke eat­ing and gift giv­ing. It explains the his­tor­i­cal back­ground of Anti­ochus, the Mac­cabees and the mir­a­cle of the oil. It nev­er for­gets to count from one to eight, with rep­e­ti­tion clev­er­ly done to teach and to tick­le the fun­ny bone. The tale’s ancient his­to­ry declares it was the Jews who fought for reli­gious free­dom; it is murky about the mod­ern hol­i­day being a Jew­ish rather than an Israeli one or one cel­e­brat­ed around the world with or with­out Israelis. Jew­ish chil­dren will con­nect at once. Chil­dren of oth­er per­sua­sions will learn Jew­ish cus­toms as they rein­force diver­si­ty and tol­er­ance. Every­one of every call­ing prac­tices count­ing. The active illus­tra­tions accu­rate­ly repli­cate the well known, beloved TV Mup­pets that young read­ers enjoy and relate to. This is the start of a fine col­lab­o­ra­tion between Kar-Ben and Sesame Street Work­shop in Shalom Sesame with three more books promised. This first one, avail­able in hard­back, paper­back, and e‑book, is rec­om­mend­ed for ages 4 – 6.