A Jewish Holiday ABC

This excellent Jewish holiday alphabet soup runs from the knedlach (dumplings) to the nuts, beginning with A for Afikomen and ending with Z for Shabbat zemirot (songs). In between are candles for Shabbat, dreidels for Chanukah, etrogs for Sukkot, blue and white Israeli flags for Simchat Torah, groggers for Purim, honey for Rosh Hashonah and a host of other treats. Some letters offer religious explanations-as in `N' for Neilah, the last service of Yom Kippur. Others offer praises, as in `U' for universe. But there's plenty of fun, too, as in `O' for Chanukah oil in which the latkes fry and `X' for a party xylophone. At one point we owned two copies of this book, which was a good thing, because one of them fell apart from use. Alyssa A. Lappen