Review of Golem Loves Latkes: A Tasty Hanukkah Tale

Golem Loves Latkes: A Tasty Hanukkah Tale Golem Loves Latkes: A Tasty Hanukkah Tale
by Doreen Klein Robinson; illus. by Anna Krajewska
Primary    Intergalactic Afikoman    40 pp.
10/25    9781951365325    $19.99

The people of Schmoozeville are fighting “like Judah and the Maccabees”: do latkes go best with applesauce or sour cream? Our narrator, a child visiting her bubbe, makes a golem out of leftover dreidel clay; the creature’s experimentation with latke toppings brings more chaos until the narrator steps up and makes further connections between this fight and the Maccabees’. The silly perennial debate is an amusing way to get to the inevitable community celebration. Illustrations of a town reminiscent of a playset fit the not-to-be-taken-too-seriously text, as does the usually-smiling rainbow-colored golem. Holiday, golem, and related information and a glossary are appended.

From the November/December 2025 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.

Shoshana Flax

Shoshana Flax, associate editor of The Horn Book, Inc., is a former bookseller and holds an MFA in writing for children from Simmons University. She has served on the Walter Dean Myers Award, Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, and Sydney Taylor Book Award committees.

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