'The Hanukkah Magic of Nate Gadol' is a mythical take on the Jewish holiday
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Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. Happy Hanukkah to all of you out there. It's funny, if I were writing an intro for a Christmas book, it'd be easy for me to throw in a reference to a reindeer here or a Santa there, and it automatically becomes Christmassy. That's a little harder to do with Hanukkah, which is why today's author wanted to write this book in the first place.

It's a kid's book called The Hanukkah Magic of Nate Godole, illustrated by Kevin Hawks and written by Arthur Levine. It came out back in 2020, and Levine spoke with NPR's Scott Simon about feeling left out seeing the wide cast of characters available to people who celebrate Christmas and wanting one for Jewish people. That's up ahead.

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Support for NPR and the following message come from the Lemelson Foundation, dedicated to improving lives through invention, innovation, and climate action. Hanukkah is not some kind of Jewish Christmas. The holiday which began this week commemorates the rededication of the Second Temple of Jerusalem, where Jews, reclaiming the temple after a revolt, found a one-day supply of oil to light its menorah, and it lasted for eight nights.

Hanukkah is called the Festival of Lights, which in North America seems to fold its smack into the lights of the Christmas season. Arthur Levine and Kevin Hawks have written and illustrated a new book for children that

may help explain how Hanukkah and Christmas have come to be helpful neighbors. The Hanukkah magic of Nate Goddell. Arthur Levine, the acclaimed editor and author of children's books, joins us from somewhere in New Jersey. Thanks so much for being with us. Thank you, Scott. It's nice to be here. Let me ask you about the character at the center of this story, Nate Goddell. And his gift is to make things stretch, isn't it? Yes. And the inspiration for that comes from

the story of the Hanukkah miracle. But I really wanted to create a kind of pourquoi story about why Jews started to give presents on Hanukkah. And the truth is that it did happen at a very specific time, the late 1880s. Because

Jewish merchants saw an opportunity. There were more middle-class Jews around, and they thought, hey, let's sell them on the idea of presents. But that's not a particularly magical story, is it? Well, and not to give anything away, you have an encounter between Nate Goddell and the biggest, what I'll just call the biggest present provider of them all. So the other part of the inspiration was that when I was a kid,

I remember feeling really erased by Christmas. Every time I turned on the TV, there was another Christmas special with all of these wonderful stories and characters and, you know, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman and, of course, Santa Claus. Christians have this

incredibly, this incredibly rich mythology that has almost nothing to do with the story of Jesus, but has become associated with the wonderful celebration of Christmas. So I really wanted to add, you know, a mythological hero that Jews could call their own. Hence Nate Gadol.

You've got to be hoping it's not just Jewish families that read this. Oh, of course. And I also think that Jewish families take many shapes. Our son has been raised Jewish, but one of his parents is fully Jewish. That's me. And the other parent is Catholic. Still, he does Christmas. Yeah. You know, that's a thing that brings his family together, and they have all these joyful traditions together.

And that's an important reason why I think it's not constructive to say, no, keep your mythology away from our mythology. Don't ever have them in the same universe. Well, why not? We all have imaginations. And you're not constructing your religion out of the stories that you tell on a holiday. I wonder, is there a theme or message in The Hanukkah Magic of Nate Caddell that we can help each other out

when it comes to bringing a little light into the lives of children. I think that this is absolutely a story of generosity and empathy. Even as it, quote, explains presence, it really does so in the context of these two families, the Glazers and the O'Malleys, going through difficult times and really wanting to help each other. And what Nate Gadol says,

is really the spirit to carry out that impulse to human kindness. Arthur Levine, who's written The Hanukkah Magic of Nate Kadol, Hanukkah Tov to you. Thank you. Thank you. Chag Sameach. Chag Sameach.

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