A Hanukkah Bear - I See Me {Review}

I was given the opportunity to review a product from I See Me! - they create personalized books for children. I replied to the email and then promptly forgot about it.

So imagine my delight over the weekend when a package arrived for me!

I See Me has a full range of personalized books, but the one that I am reviewing is their Chanukah story, a sweet little book called "A Hanukkah Bear for Solomon." (They also have a book called "A Christmas Bear for...")

It's really a lovely book, with rhyming words and beautiful illustrations. The story is pretty basic - a child really wants a teddy bear, and throughout the week of Chanukah opens different gifts - a dreidel, gelt, toys, etc, and he eats latkes, lights candles, and eventually gets his sweet little bear on the last night.

The book is personalized on almost every page, which was really neat. I especially liked this page, which had gift tags for all the kids in our family. (They asked for this information, and I couldn't quite understand how it was all going to work out.)

I get a little crabby about Chanukah books that are focused on gifts, since I don't really feel like that is the main emphasis of the holiday of Chanukah. The nice thing, though, is that this book doesn't actually detail daily gifts as much as it helps to indicate that the whole 8 days are a celebration and family time.

There also aren't any pictures of people, which is really nice since families of all shapes, sizes and colors could read a book like this without feeling uncomfortable or left out. I filled out an information form, and I was asked for the "sender" of the book and gift. I used "mom and dad" but I'd imagine that you could put anything there and those names would be in the text of the book - "Then Mom and Dad gave him the last gift of all..." It would be so nice for a single parent family, or a same-sex couple, for example, to have whatever terminology they prefer. I like the potential for inclusion of everyone in a book like this one.

Solly is definitely not old enough to appreciate this book but I know that his siblings will love reading it and he will really like it as he gets older. It also came with a cuddly Gund bear that I know he will really like right now! The kiddo loves his bears.

Overall, I was very impressed with this product.

There is a bit of a lag time on orders, since it's all personalized, so they suggest that you order by December 3rd for Chanukah delivery!

I See Me also has a Facebook page, and they give discounts/deals on that page, so go and "like" them there if you're interested.

Full disclosure: I received this product free from the company. I was not compensated in any other way for my review and they didn't tell me what to say.