Eight Wild Nights: A Family Hanukkah Tale

By Brian P. Cleary and David Udovic

With humor and rhyme, a Jewish family celebrates and survives the eight days of Hanukkah. Every Jewish family will relate to this roller coaster of joys and adventures as an assortment of relatives and friends descends on the household.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lerner Publishing
• Release date: Jan 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781512488432

Brian P. Cleary

Brian P. Cleary is an American humorist, poet, and author. He is best known for his books written for grade-school children that explore grammar, math and poetry in humorous ways. In his role in the digital division of American Greetings, he's put words in the mouths of Dolly Parton, Christina Aguilera, William Shatner, Meghan Trainor and more. The multi-million selling author has performed poetry workshops in 500 elementary schools across the county. He lives in Cleveland, Ohio.

Book preview

Reviews for Eight Wild Nights

[courtneyzeggert · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a great book for introducing children to the Jewish culture and specifically the celebration of Hanukkah. It is a playful tale of a family and all of the chaos that they experience together throughout the Hanukkah events. The story is a weaving of humor and facts that give you informatio along the way. The drawings are colored pencil and they are very detailed and capture the emotions of all the characters very well.

[nmhale_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

In this rhyming picture book, a young narrator recounts his family's celebration of the Hanukkah holiday. He reveals his trepidation as a horde of family members descend on his house to celebrate, eat, and play. Their cat is terrorized by an aunt's dog, their grandfather plays practical jokes and tells unbelievable stories, their cousins whine and steal their new presents. Nonetheless, the pictures show that people are still having a good time, and the last page of the book reveals that the greatest miracle of all is that everyone is eager to do it again next year.It's a cute story that portrays how one family might celebrate Hanukkah in modern times. Many of the verses refer to important artifacts or traditions associated with the holiday, like eating latkes and lighting the menorah and being as brave as the Maccabaeus. The illustrations are colorful and wild, nicely suiting the theme of a crazy family gathering. Sadly, many of the sentences are contorted to fit the rhyme pattern of AABCCB. This is a personal pet peeve of mine, when a writer sacrifices a natural and organic sentence purely for the sake of a rhyme. Other than that, the picture book is a pleasant story to read. With so many books about the origins and history of Hanukkah, it is nice to find a story that presents a contemporary scenario of celebrating the holiday today.

[ebutzn1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed reading “Eight Wild Nights,” a story about Hanukkah. Although my family does not celebrate Hanukkah, this story reminds me much of my family. In particular, the chaos and craziness their large family employs is exactly how my house is around the holidays. It made me laugh a lot because of all the things that went wrong. My favorite part was the comical, rhythmic language. Specifically, “My cousin who’s six has learned a few tricks. He gathers up all of the gelt! And hides it down far in an old VCR and waits for the chocolate to melt.” The illustration, too, identifies this verse while the little boy, with a devious look on his face, stares at the chocolate VCR. Another essential feature of this book is the “About Hanukkah” page in the very beginning. This page is separate from the comical story, informing readers what Hanukkah is and why it is celebrated. Overall, the main idea of this story is to present the Jewish experience of Hanukkah in a funny way for children to enjoy.