Pep­py Rachel Fried­man is back, and this time, she’s prepar­ing to cel­e­brate Hanukkah. A class­mate talks up Christ­mas, telling Rachel that it’s the best hol­i­day ever — but Rachel knows per­fec­tion when she sees it, and she is absolute­ly con­vinced that Hanukkah is far supe­ri­or to every­thing else. Prov­ing it, though, is the tricky part. And she needs to prove it not only to the arro­gant class­mate but also to herself.

She sits down and brain­storms ideas for activ­i­ties that will make this Hanukkah absolute­ly spec­tac­u­lar. But, of course, all the plan­ning in the world can’t account for every con­ceiv­able event; her father runs out of pota­toes on latke-mak­ing night, her broth­er breaks his leg ice skat­ing, her Mac­cabee snow­man looks noth­ing like her vision, and she real­izes she is not a tal­ent­ed engi­neer when she attempts to con­struct the per­fect Lego meno­rah. Noth­ing comes togeth­er the way she imag­ined it, and Hanukkah is not turn­ing out to be per­fect at all.

Slow­ly, Rachel begins to under­stand that real per­fec­tion is com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent from the arti­fi­cial ver­sion we cre­ate in our minds. She learns that while some things are out of her con­trol, oth­ers are achiev­able. A cre­ative project designed to amuse her recu­per­at­ing broth­er is a grand suc­cess. Fam­i­ly time, flick­er­ing can­dles, jel­ly donuts, and close friends all help her see the hol­i­day in a new light. Prov­ing that Hanukkah is the best hol­i­day is not impor­tant; enjoy­ing it with friends and fam­i­ly is.

Adorable and quirky black-and-white illus­tra­tions com­ple­ment this charm­ing, easy-to-read chap­ter book.