Synopsis
Eleanor's grandmother, Bubbe, makes chicken soup with matzo balls every Passover, and this year is no exception. With Eleanor's help, Bubbe makes some of the lumpiest, bumpiest, yummiest-looking matzo balls Eleanor has ever seen. These matzo balls are so delicious that no one in Eleanor's family can resist sneaking a taste, each thinking one or two matzo balls will never be missed. But when it comes time to serve the soup at the Passover meal, there aren't enough matzo balls for everyone-until Eleanor find one last matzo ball in a very unexpected place! Expressive, cheerful illustrations complement this warm story of a family's celebration of the Passover holiday and their rediscovery of its true meaning.
Publishers Weekly
For Eleanor and her family, the highlight of Passover is having Bubbe come and make her fabulous matzo ball soup. This year the recipe turns out so well that no one can enter the kitchen without sneaking a matzo ball from the panand there are so many trips to the kitchen that Bubbe falls short one matzo ball when it's time for the seder. "Eat up, all of you," she says, serving matzo balls to everyone else. "As long as my family enjoys, I enjoy." Newman (Too Far Away to Touch) captures the easy affection and love of happy families, and if Bubbe says the expected, she is also credible and has some chutzpah. The cheerfully nave style of Greenstein's (While the Candles Burn: Eight Stories for Hanukkah) painted monoprints intensifies the mood of sunny domesticity. Colors are both vivid and slightly warmed, giving the palette a comfortably well-worn look, and compositions gracefully incorporate casually festive patterns. While the art is consistently inviting, the text gets a little too sweet at the end. Eleanor, gazing at a full moon, sees it as a "big, bumpy, lumpy, yummy-looking matzo ball," and offers the metaphor up to a delighted Bubbe. The moral: when the moon in the sky is a big matzo ball, that's amore. Ages 5-8. (Mar.)