Review: Let It Glow
Let It Glow
by Marissa Meyer and Joanne Levy
Feiwel & Friends, 2024
Category: Middle Grade
Reviewer: Jacqueline Jules
Buy at Bookshop.org
The device of long-lost identical twins reunited is delightfully employed by Marissa Meyer and Joanne Levy in this fun middle grade holiday novel. Holly and Aviva are two well-adjusted twelve-year-olds, comfortable with their status as adoptive daughters in their respective loving families. They both have a close relationship with a grandparent. This brings them both to Rowena Village, a senior center holding a December holiday pageant. Aviva, a born performer, enthusiastically volunteers, (at her Bubbe’s suggestion), to do a Hanukkah song. Holly reluctantly agrees to help backstage. They meet by accident at rehearsals and immediately bond as sisters. Aviva suggests that they switch places and surprise their families with a big reveal during the holiday pageant. Holly goes along, thinking that they will be discovered right away. However, both girls do an excellent job of impersonating the other, using resourcefulness and technology. Through alternating chapters, the story humorously shares Holly’s panic at the dinner table when she doesn’t know if Aviva is right or left-handed, and Aviva’s worry that Holly’s suspicious cat could give her away. Both girls have some qualms about feeling replaceable when their families accept the switch without too many questions.
Time spent in each other’s homes gives the sisters an opportunity to learn more about each other’s traditions. Holly lives with her single mom and grandfather in a Christian home. Aviva lives in a multiracial two-parent family with two brothers. Her family is Jewish but not observant. Before the switch, Aviva requests an eight-day Hanukkah celebration which Holly enjoys instead. Aviva experiences Christmas preparations, including posing for a family photo, in Holly’s home. Toward the end of the novel, Aviva realizes that she feels like a tourist when it comes to Christmas. Hanukkah is her holiday. In a thoughtful moment, Aviva reflects, “The more I’d learned about Christmas, as fun as it was, the more I felt my own Jewishness. Not because it was better, but because it fit me better.” Aviva’s exploration of her Jewishness is supported by her grandmother who strongly identifies as a Jew. Yet Aviva’s knowledge of Judaism is limited. Both Holly and Aviva must research Hanukkah. In Let it Glow, authors Marissa Meyer and Joanne Levy offer a Jewish character gravitating toward her own tradition in an appealing, positive way. One hopes that Aviva will continue to learn and possibly have a Bat Mitzvah.
Let it Glow is a heart-warming holiday story for readers of all faiths to enjoy.
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Reviewer Jacqueline Jules is the author of fifty books for young readers including The Porridge-Pot Goblin, The Hardest Word, Picnic at Camp Shalom, Drop by Drop: A Story of Rabbi Akiva, Light the Menorah: A Hanukkah Handbook, and Never Say a Mean Word Again. Her middle grade verse novel, My Name is Hamburger, was a PJ Our Way selection. And her picture book, Moses and the Runaway Lamb, was a Junior Library Guild selection. She lives on Long Island and enjoys talking long walks along the water. Visit her online www.jacquelinejules.com.
The device of long-lost identical twins reunited is delightfully employed by Marissa Meyer and Joanne Levy in this fun middle grade holiday novel. Holly and Aviva are two well-adjusted twelve-year-olds, comfortable with their status as adoptive daughters in their respective loving families. They both have a close relationship with a grandparent. This brings them both to Rowena Village, a senior center holding a December holiday pageant. Aviva, a born performer, enthusiastically volunteers, (at her Bubbe’s suggestion), to do a Hanukkah song. Holly reluctantly agrees to help backstage. They meet by accident at rehearsals and immediately bond as sisters. Aviva suggests that they switch places and surprise their families with a big reveal during the holiday pageant. Holly goes along, thinking that they will be discovered right away. However, both girls do an excellent job of impersonating the other, using resourcefulness and technology. Through alternating chapters, the story humorously shares Holly’s panic at the dinner table when she doesn’t know if Aviva is right or left-handed, and Aviva’s worry that Holly’s suspicious cat could give her away. Both girls have some qualms about feeling replaceable when their families accept the switch without too many questions.
Time spent in each other’s homes gives the sisters an opportunity to learn more about each other’s traditions. Holly lives with her single mom and grandfather in a Christian home. Aviva lives in a multiracial two-parent family with two brothers. Her family is Jewish but not observant. Before the switch, Aviva requests an eight-day Hanukkah celebration which Holly enjoys instead. Aviva experiences Christmas preparations, including posing for a family photo, in Holly’s home. Toward the end of the novel, Aviva realizes that she feels like a tourist when it comes to Christmas. Hanukkah is her holiday. In a thoughtful moment, Aviva reflects, “The more I’d learned about Christmas, as fun as it was, the more I felt my own Jewishness. Not because it was better, but because it fit me better.” Aviva’s exploration of her Jewishness is supported by her grandmother who strongly identifies as a Jew. Yet Aviva’s knowledge of Judaism is limited. Both Holly and Aviva must research Hanukkah. In Let it Glow, authors Marissa Meyer and Joanne Levy offer a Jewish character gravitating toward her own tradition in an appealing, positive way. One hopes that Aviva will continue to learn and possibly have a Bat Mitzvah.
Let it Glow is a heart-warming holiday story for readers of all faiths to enjoy.
Are you interested in reviewing books for The Sydney Taylor Shmooze? Click here!
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