Dear Santa, Love, Rachel Rosenstein

K-Gr 3—Rachel is desperate to celebrate Christmas, even though she and her family are Jewish. Feeling "like a kid in a candy store with no mouth," she secretly develops a scheme to get Santa to visit her home, complete with a letter to the North Pole, homemade decorations, and even a visit to the mall to sit on his lap. When he doesn't show, she is extremely disappointed and is almost too sad to enjoy her family's traditional dinner at a Chinese restaurant, the only place left open. There, she is surprised to find she isn't the only kid not visited by Santa when she meets other classmates who also don't celebrate the season but take pride in their own cultural holidays and traditions. Davenier's illustrations are the highlight of this title. Bright watercolors depict Rachel and her family as a loving group, surrounded by commercial trappings of the season. Unfortunately, while the story attempts to teach pride and celebration in other traditions, it is overshadowed in a final spread that reinforces the idea that Christmas is superior and that "sometimes, no matter how badly we want something, we just have to accept what is."