Heartwarming reads for chilly nights

When heavy snow falls, thoughtful Monty Nudelman get shovelling and clears his neighbours’ paths. But just as he finishes, his back gives way. He has to miss Saturday-morning synagogue — but all the people he has helped want to show him some kindness in return and all have the same idea — to bring him a container of cholent. Not only is Michael Herman’s The Cholent Brigade (Kar Ben, £5.99) a heartwarming story about one good deed deserving another, it also portrays, through Sharon Harmer’s illustrations, a diverse Jewish population. Age three to seven.

It is night in the dreidl workshop and the Hebrew letters (drawn by Iryna Bodnaruk as big-eyed creatures, similar to clothed baby hedgehogs) are having a debate — except for the gimmels, who are sleeping sweetly in their tray). The other letters are upset that everybody wants their dreidls to land on the winning letter gimmel. They decide to hide the gimmels, so the dreidl makers will have to manufacture the spinning tops without them.

When The Missing Letters (by Renée Londner, Kar-Ben, £5.99) are discovered, the makers are shocked — and recall how playing dreidl saved the original Maccabees, as they used them as a diversion to conceal their Torah studies from the Romans (nicely incorporating an educational episode). Will the other letters release the gimmels? Age three to seven.

Introduce young readers to Chelm, the traditional village of fools, with Way Too Many Latkes, a Hanukkah in Chelm by Linda Glaser (appetisingly illustrated by Aleksandar Zolotic, Kar-Ben, £6.50). Faigel is making latkes but she cannot remember the recipe. Some careless advice from the rabbi leads her to use every potato, egg and onion she possesses — resulting in a mountain of latkes and a puzzle about how to eat them all up. The joke in this story is built up by repeated fool’s errands, as Faigel sends her husband for advice one ingredient at a time. Children up to age nine will enjoy the escalating latke complications.