Meet the Latkes, by Alan Silberberg, was an instantaneous hit in our home. Lucy Latke and her crazy potato latkes family won us all over completely (except our teen who doesn’t care). While none of us are potato latkes, we all found many similarities to our crazy human family. Grandpa Latke tells Lucy the tale of Chanukah only his version is a fantastical tale of Mega Bees stinging green alien spuds. Applesauce, the family dog, must set the record straight.
My 6-year-old was so wholly engaged that she couldn’t stop yelling out the real story to correct Grandpa Latke. The grandpa was silly in exactly a grandpa sort of way, and the family dog was nearly as smart as our cat. No animal, real or imagined could be as smart a her. The character that we all loved the best because we know him too well was Lex. Lex is the grumpy teen brother who stays in his messy room with his headphones on. His vocabulary is limited to, “I don’t care.”
After reading the story five times (day 1), I tweeted about how much we enjoyed it. I also tweeted how we were struck by the verisimilitude of Lex and our grumpy teen. They even have the same hair! The author, Alan Silberberg, responded with thanks and also made a personalized sketch for my little latkes. She, in turn, drew one for him.
Meet the Latkes is another excellent book from PJ LIbrary that is going to be a family favorite for years to come.
