Don't Sneeze at the Wedding

August 19, 2013
Anna has a tickly nose, and the adults are all in tizzy: she’s the flower girl for her Aunt Rachel, and what if she sneezes while the bride and groom are having their big moment under the chuppah? Everybody has a tip to keep the “Ah-choos” in check—family members, vendors (“cherie, just say ‘pineapple’ ” says the stylist), and even Rabbi Bernstein. The cumulative list of idiosyncratic directives puts Anna in a tizzy herself; luckily, there’s one point in every Jewish wedding ceremony when no one can hear you sneeze—well, maybe except the rabbi. At first glance, the book’s framework of wedding preparations, combined with its sweet, predominantly pink cartooning might seem to rule out male readers. But Mayer (The Grandma Cure) and Avilés (The Shabbat Princess) find broad appeal and comedy in each of their vividly imagined vignettes, while the growing list of sneeze preventives should resonate with anyone who believes that grownups, too, are capable of saying the darnedest things. Ages 5–9.

September 1, 2013

PreS-Gr 2-It's the morning of Aunt Rachel's wedding, and Anna is going to be the flower girl. Everything is not perfect, however, because she wakes up with a sneeze and continues to sneeze as she puts on her fancy dress, her family arrives at the temple, she gets her hair done, and she watches Uncle Matt sign the ketubah. With each sneeze, well-meaning adults offer tips for halting it, which Anna incorporates into a six-step process of touching her lip, wiggling her earlobe, saying "pineapple," tapping her forehead, pinching her nose, and holding her breath. Anna is sneeze-free through each part of the wedding ceremony, until the crowd shouts, "Mazel Tov!" The framing story works well to introduce children to the rituals involved in a Jewish wedding, and the cartoon-style illustrations, suffused with pink, complement the narrative nicely. A good addition to Judaic picture-book collections.-Martha Link Yesowitch, Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, NC

Copyright 2013 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.