Editorial Review

A young girl living near Safed, Israel, describes how her family grows and harvests olives to make the oil they use each year in their Hanukkah menorah. In the spring the trees bloom and tiny green olives form; in early fall the family picks and preserves a few green olives for eating; and in late fall they pick, sort, and press ripe black olives for oil. The story is simply told from the young girl’s point of view, makes use of Hebrew terms (Ima and Abba for mother and father), and references Jewish holidays (Sukkot and Hanukkah) to describe the maturational stages of the olives. Alpern’s clear color photographs follow each step of the cycle, emphasizing how the family works to-gether in these efforts and how they appreciate the beauty of these trees in addition to their bounty. This is a natural choice for religious collections, but it will also be useful for classes studying life in contemporary Israel.