the three little tamales. eric a. kimmel. (81)

when looking for "the chanukkah guest", i came across this book written by the author. with my love of tamales, there was no way to i could pass this up.

"the three little tamales" is a updated (and in my opinion, cuter) version of the three little pigs. the story starts off with the three little tamales running away from a taqueria after seeing a tortilla roll away. they move into three different homes and as it goes in the fairy tale world, a big bad lobo shows up waiting to eat them! luckily the third tamale is super smart (she also happens to wear glasses, which i guess makes her the dorky tamale. and yes i loved her frames) and made a cactus her house. all three tamales seek shelter there. hungry for tamales (i get him on that), the lobo decides to go down the chimney just like in the original story, but this time the tamales threaten to turn him into tamales. wolf tamales sounded very sinister to me but at the same time kind of delicious. the wolf than runs away and is never seen from again. in the end, the tamales throw a fiesta to celebrate and invite their tortilla friends.

so cute, right? this book was seriously too cute and only enhanced my love of tamales. so cute, i plan on buying a copy for my personal library. this will also be a staple in my kid's library, if i ever have kids. check in out and read it with your kids and if you don't have any, you can enjoy it by yourself! warning: have tamales on hand because you will be craving them!

also valeria docampo did a great job on the illustrations. check out how cute had tamales are:

the chanukkah guest. eric a. kimmel. (79)

due to the holiday season, i have added two christmas books to my reading list. however, this morning i realized that hanukkah started today and decided to check out what books the delano library had. i found two online but only found one at the library. i found "the chanukkah guest" by eric a. kimmel. (note: you can spell hanukkah with or without the c, not sure why that is. however, i prefer the non-c.)

i read "the chanukkah guest" with brother bear at sunset (when hanukkah officially starts) and taught him about the cultural hanukkah things like dridels and latkes. also informed him that jesus was a jew and also nephi from the book of mormon.

the story was adorable and of course includes a great grandmother, bubba brayna. bubba brayna made the best latkes and always hosted the first night of hanukkah. however, this time she had a surprise. old bear came out of hibernation and the first thing he smelled were latkes. following the smell, he ended up knocking on bubba brayna's door. since she didn't see or hear that well, she let the bear in, thinking he was the rabbi. they had a lovely evening, they lit the menorah (the bear "said" the prayer, so i guess growling sounds like hebrew?), they played dreidel and the bear ate all of the latkes with jam. (brother bear and i agreed we would eat our latkes with sour cream). bubba brayna even gave old bear a scarf as a gift and the bear licked her face which she mistook for a kiss.

after old bear left, everyone showed up. bubba brayna explained that the rabbi ate all the latkes but her grandchildren discovered the paw prints and that it was a bear not the rabbi! but as sweet as bubba brayna is, she just laughed and said "that was a very clever bear . . . or a foolish bubba brayna". then everyone pitched in and made latkes and a wonderful hanukkah!

it was a very cute story and had brother bear and i laughing. it also made me extremely hungry for latkes. but being in delano, not sure where i will find them. when i told my friend larry that i might just eat hash browns and applesauce, he suggested mcdonald's hash browns. i was impressed by his innovation because micky d's hash browns are very latkes-esque. so hopefully will get my fill over these next few days of hanukkah!