Review: Lily's Hong Kong Honey Cake

Lily's Hong Kong Honey Cake

by Erica Lyons, illustrated by Bonnie Pang

Apples & Honey Press (imprint of Behrman House), 2025

Category: Picture Books

Reviewer: Amy Brook Cohen

 

Buy at Bookshop.org

Lily’s Hong Kong Honey Cake is a beautiful book which follows a young Jewish girl and her family who move from Vienna to Shanghai in 1939, and then later to Hong Kong. The book is set over a decade, and Lily’s story echoes the stories of other Jewish refugees who left Europe for Asia during the Second World War.

When Lily is three, she and her family leave Austria, where they run a bakery. Eating their honey cake on a ship bound for China, Lily’s mother says, “For a sweet year, my sweet one.” This refrain repeats throughout the book. For the next few years, Lily and her family run a successful bakery in downtown Shanghai: “But the honey cake still tasted like home.” War is hard, and by Lily’s eighth Rosh Hashanah, there are no ingredients available to make honey cake. Soon, Lily and her family head to Hong Kong and stay in a hotel for refugees. Lily helps the hotel chef make honey cake, even though he doesn’t have any honey. “The honey cake tasted like home, because we were together.” Even when everything changes, some things always stay the same.

Lyons makes clever use of repetitive language throughout, and Bonnie Pang’s illustrations are vivid and moving, hinting at the sadness that war brings, all the while evoking family and love. Backmatter provides information about Jewish refugees in Hong Kong and Shanghai, and there’s also a map and glossary.

Lily’s Hong Kong Honey Cake is a story of family, tradition, and resilience and is accessible to even very young readers. Jewish and non-Jewish readers alike will find something to enjoy in this moving story with both universal and Jewish themes. All readers will surely learn something new from this book, which is a lovely addition to the small group of picture books telling the stories of Jewish refugees to Asia.  

 

Editor's Note: This book was named to the Fall 2025 Holiday Highlights list by the Association of Jewish Libraries.   

 

ARE YOU INTERESTED IN REVIEWING BOOKS FOR THE SYDNEY TAYLOR SHMOOZE? CLICK HERE

 

Reviewer Amy Brook Cohen is a writer and teacher; her essays and articles have been published widely on both sides of the Atlantic. Amy is currently at work on her first children's picture book. She lives in London, England, with her husband and two children.