Ellen Kushner: The Golden Dreydl

This review was originally published on Green Man. Ellen in an email a few minutes ago told me that The Golden Dreydl is now out in paperback and I think it’d make a wonderful gift for a child in this Chanukah season.

Someday I’ll get blasé about the amazing things that show up unexpectedly in the post here at Green Man. But that won’t happen for quite some time if exquisite things such as Ellen Kushner’s The Golden Dreydl keep showing up here! This short novel holds wonders which will brighten up anyone who reads it. It’s that good.

A golden dreydl is, in case you haven’t encountered one, a toy, the name being Yiddish, dreydl for ‘to turn or twist’. It is a 4-sided toy marked with Hebrew letters and spun like a top in a game of chance. It’s common enough that many children not Hebrew have played with one in the days when such simple toys were all there were for entertainment. (I am not being nostalgic — just stating what was. Times change, toys change.) This dreydl, this golden dreydl, is not a simple toy but rather one capable of true magic. Indeed for one small girl, Sarah by name, on a winter’s night at her family’s Chanukah party, this toy will bring wonders.

But before this charming book, there was a wonderful CD and Judith Gennet who reviewed that recording for us back a few years ago tells what this story is about:

The plot to the story is as follows. One Chanukah night, a tradition-weary child named Sarah receives a magic golden dreydl (a clever cross between a top and a die) from her Aunt Miriam. While fighting with her brother, the dreydl is catapulted disastrously into the TV screen. Crack! Later, Sarah finds the dreydl laying on the floor in the form of a girl, and they then leap through the injured screen into the golden dreydl’s world, sort of like an Oz or Wonderland. (A TV screen? How symbolic!)

Oh, but not all is well in the world that the golden dreydl comes from, as here be dragons which are most unfriendly.

The Golden Dreydlwas inspired by the music of the renowned band Shirim, who created a klezmer version of Tchaikovsky’s ‘Nutcracker Suite’ for Chanukah. (Really — it does work rather well!) Did I mention that what appears to be a toy is really a princess? Thought not. Suffice it to say that Sara has a guide to this world — that princess. Is a good story. Indeed it is. As Judith said in her review of the recording, ‘be a fun album for kids, for those interested in Jewish heritage, and for adults who like fairy stories. The Golden Dreydl could easily evolve into a holiday tradition.’ I agree.

Like Jane Yolen’s The Wild Hunt, I adore this novel. Both the text by Ellen Kushner and the design of book itself are perfect. Each novel has illustrations that add to the enjoyment of the text; each is a short enough read (as is any great fairy tale) that it lends itself to repeated reading either for your own pleasure or loud to others. Though both are too recent to be classics yet in children’s literature, they should be within a few years.

Oh, do buy the recording as well. You’ll find it just as charming.

(Charlesbridge, 2007)