How Mama Brought the Spring

by Fran Manushkin
pictures by Holly Berry

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This book, with its wintry setting that turns spring, is not exactly what you'd expect kids to pick out in the hottest part of the summer, but mine did! I think it's a manifestation of the power a book can have in carrying us off to another world (a snowy day in Minsk is just about as distant as you can get from a scorching hot day in Central Valley, California!)

This is a lovely story of a mother who tells her daughter a tale from her own childhood in Minsk, in order to motivate her out of bed on a freezing Chicago morning. I can imagine the imagery of her own mother's magical blintzes (a cheese-filled breakfast pastry) warming me and my girls on a cold day. I definitely want to check this one out again when that time comes and I am longing for warmer days. I'll probably even try the recipe for "Mama's Cheese Blintzes" found at the back of the book!