A Holocaust survivor shares Hanukkah with a loving family that gives him the courage to remember.

I found this book to be emotionally intense for young readers. Morris Kaplan is a holocaust survivor who owns a flower shop. He has two young customers who visit every Friday to buy flowers for their family's Sabbath. When Hanukkah comes around, Mr. Kaplan explains how he no longer celebrates this holiday because it brings up too many bad memories. That's when the young customers come in and invite him to enjoy their family festivities for the holiday. Although these festivities bring up painful memories for Morris, this experience brings him back to the light and realizes he needs to face his fears and emotions of his past. I really enjoyed this book, but I do feel it was a tad intense. The reason it is called One Yellow Daffodil is because seeing one reminds Morris of being in the concentration camp. I thought this book was super powerful and I would introduce it to older students for sure. It has a wonderful theme of the power of friendships and love. ( )

I enjoyed this story as it was very touching and emotional, but works well to tell such a story in an easy-to-understand way. Mr. Kaplan is an elderly man who runs a flower shop. He is very generous with his clients, including two Jewish children who invite him over for Hanukkah. He first appears very mysterious, but eventually his story of survival and loneliness come to light. What I really enjoyed about this story was the dialogue. Each character had their own style of talking, which made them seem all the more real. My favorite quote from the story, which showed some character depth, was when he was looking at the empty plant bowl and claimed, "We are both the same...Empty. I must find a nice plant for you." This shows another piece of the story that I enjoyed, which was the symbolism. The empty pot resembles how Mr. Kaplan felt and what he longed for. The yellow daffodil symbolizes his hope while in Auschwitz. I believe that a story with this depth has two big messages: everybody has a story of their own, and everybody deserves to belong somewhere. ( )

I liked this story for many different reasons. I liked the writing of this story because the author kept the tone mellow and calm. For example, the author wrote about a story about two children who came into Morris’s flower shop to purchase flowers for the Sabbath. The author wrote about Morris’s religion, “I don’t celebrate either holiday. When I was a small boy in Poland, I celebrated Hanukkah, but that was many years ago. This book went into detail about two children who celebrated Hanukkah. I also liked the illustrations of this book because the author used very attention-grabbing details. The illustrator emphasized the flowers because this story was a lot about how the flowers played a role in their holiday of Hanukkah. This Historical Fiction book had a setting that was accurate for the time. This book also helped readers understand the perspectives because this book discussed events that happened in Auschwitz and about celebrating the holiday, Hanukkah. The big idea or message of this story was to discuss the events that happened to the Jewish community during the war through fictional characters. I would definitely share this story with my class.

Touching. Subtle. Community-building in action. ( )