Hanukkah Ideas for Families from PJ Library — with a new original picture book!

 

PJ Library offers a wealth of ideas and free resources for families at their updated Hanukkah Hub, including kid-friendly information about the holiday, interfaith celebration ideas, 10 easy kid-approved Hanukkah recipes, free printables (menorah, dreidel and other activity ideas).It’s all available at: https://pjlibrary.org/hanukkah.

 

The newly published and exclusive-to-PJ Publishing picture book Hanukkah at Monica's is now available on the PJ Library Amazon store at https://www.amazon.com/pjlibrary. The colorful 32-page paperback book is written and illustrated by Varda Livney.  

Here's the story: No one loves Hanukkah more than Monica. And celebrating the Festival of Lights — lighting candles, singing blessings, eating delicious fried foods and playing dreidel — is even more fun with friends. Luckily, Monica has lots of friends, including a robot, a pirate, even a jellyfish! Who’s going to arrive at her party next?

 

PJ Library also offers several other great holiday book suggestions; please visit the Ultimate Children's Book List. (These are books mailed for free to subscribers; some are available for purchase elsewhere.)

 

PJ Library Presents launches season 2 of their NAPPA Award-winning podcasts this season. A new Afternoons with Mimi podcast episode is coming on Nov. 22: "Kiddo Lights the Hanukkah Candles.” Hanukkah is here and it's time for the whole family to get together. Kiddo isn't sure how to light the candles or where each one goes in the menorah. Miraculous Mimi to the rescue!

 

Other Amazon store gift ideas: Choose easy and meaningful Hanukkah gifts, including a Jewish perpetual calendar, PJ Library aprons, and carefully curated books (like Hanukkah at Monica’s) for children: https://www.amazon.com/pjlibrary

For the first time ever this fall, the Yoto App includes Jewish stories for children starting November 8th. PJ Library is providing podcast episodes for this screen-free audio listening device for young children: https://us.yotoplay.com/.

 

 

About PJ Library

PJ Library is a program of the Harold Grinspoon Foundation, an internationally recognized, $40M global cultural literacy venture that partners with philanthropists and Jewish communities around the world to provide families raising Jewish children with the gift of free, high-quality children's books and other resources that foster a deeper connection with Jewish life. Each month, PJ Library and PJ Our way mails out nearly 670,000 books to families worldwide. To date, PJ Library has gifted 50 million books to children. To find out more or sign up kids age 0-12, visit www.pjlibrary.org.

Nursery Rhymes Book Guest Post

The first documented mention of nursery rhymes can be found in plays around the 17th to 18th century. Even before this, most human culture had created their own lyrical forms of rhymes versed through songs, to stimulate the mind and nurture one’s offspring.

Still loved today and greatly revered, nursery rhymes are a light-hearted link to the past, where nostalgia of childhood innocence can be rekindled with every passing rhyme. Some editions, like the personalised nursery rhyme book have been rejuvenated with a personalised twist, giving children a personal keepsake of their youth.

The earliest nursery rhymes we know of date back to the 14th century, during the Medieval era. The topic of taxes, religious persecution, plagues and disease were the mindless tunes churned out, as the lyrics mostly reflected one’s environment and society.

Though these topics are not the wholesome, fanciful rhymes that nursery rhymes of today present, the songs still perpetuate, and are passed down from parents to children, sung throughout schools and written in storybooks. Many songs also have much darker origins. 

The origins of popular rhymes - like stories from The Brothers Grimm or Hans Christian Andersen - are rooted in ‘folklore’. In short, the term sufficiently describes the nature of nursery rhymes and fairy tales based upon “stories of a community” that are passed between generations by word of mouth.

The most notable and popular rhymes still sung today emerged around the 17th and 18th century. This is known as the ‘golden era’ of rhymes, with the first English collections, Tommy Thumb's Song Book and a sequel, Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book, published before 1744. 

It was Thomas Carnan, the stepson of John Newberry - the publisher of the collections - who first used the term “Mother Goose” for nursery rhymes. The terms are often interchangeable, both with the same goal of comforting and lulling children, hence the term “lullaby”. 

However, there has always been a concern over the subject matter of nursery rhymes since their emergence. Many nursery rhymes gained notoriety predominantly as a form of societal resistance and mockery of the higher classes by caricaturing royalty, politicians and corruption. 

In these Medieval times, if the poor and often victims of said tyranny spoke out against corrupt high officials, the offence was punishable by death and so, a watered down form of ridicule to gently expose injustices presented itself as children’s entertainment: nursery rhymes, hence the dark subject matter of many popular rhymes.

In opposition to the dark undertones of children’s rhymes, the British Society for Nursery Rhyme Reform was founded in the Victorian period. They condemned the some of the most popular nursery rhymes like Humpty Dumpty and Lucy Locket, and vowed to clean up the cannon. 

Despite the darker origins behind nursery rhymes, the proven evolutionary benefits are evident. Nursery rhymes are essential to aid a child’s brain development, their basic skills in infancy and help nurture the parent-child bond. These are among the huge advantages of reading and repeating beloved nursery rhymes.