A sweet and compassionate introduction to an important Jewish custom.
A little girl watches a poor man take a bruised apple from the market’s discard pile and finds a way to help him.
Sara’s keen observation from her apartment window makes her wonder if the man is hungry all the time and if he might need a friend. In school, she keeps thinking about him, and at snack time, she saves her cookie to leave by the discard fruit bin the next day. At the oneg Shabbat after services on Friday, Sara recognizes the man eating challah and drinking grape juice. She then creates and leaves a Hanukkah goody bag complete with a homemade menorah, latkes, and cookies. When the rabbi tells her that his name is Morris and that he lives alone and helps each Friday with setting up for the reception, Sara then decides to invite him for a Shabbat and Hanukkah dinner. The importance of tzedakah, or giving to those less fortunate, is the overlying theme in this gentle story about generosity and caring for others, something to be mindful of each Shabbat and on Hanukkah. Full-bleed paintings show exaggerated and elongated cartoon-style figures living in an ethnically diverse urban neighborhood. Many scenes are viewed from below, offering a child’s perspective, and light and shadows from a sunny window are also some of the many artistic details that give this narrative depth.
A sweet and compassionate introduction to an important Jewish custom. (author’s note) (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-68115-500-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Apples & Honey Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2015
The title says it all: When Baxter hears about Shabbat, when “the candles gleam and glow and dance while our sweetest voices lift in song,” from an old man at the bus stop, of course he wants to be part of it—but how? The young man he meets the next week tells him he can’t: “You’re not kosher!” In pursuit of kosher, Baxter eats kosher dills, pigs out on challah and teaches himself to moo. Finally a kindly rabbi leads him to the truth: “But,” she asks, “why would you want to get eaten?” She goes on, however, to explain that “[i]t is a mitzvah to welcome a stranger,” so Baxter gets to enjoy Shabbat after all. Goldin’s photo-collage illustrations present a suitably goofy-but-sincere cartoon pig dressed in a plaid button-down Oxford shirt and locate him in an urban neighborhood that features an imposing synagogue and a kosher deli. While Snyder's glossary glides a little irresponsibly over the precise meaning of "kosher," this will nevertheless find plenty of use in Jewish homes, particularly among families in which one parent is not Jewish. (author's note) (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 24, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-58246-315-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tricycle
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Kingsbury, a prolific author of Christian novels for adults, offers a story for younger readers about a courageous knight who competes to become prince of his homeland and heir to the throne. The competition pits four knights from different villages against one another as they face three challenges to test their speed, strength and intelligence. The dark-haired knight from the west village is introduced as a kind, hard-working young man who practices all these skills prior to the competition. His father encourages him along the way with comforting messages about God’s support. During the challenges each of the other knights cheats in some way to gain an unfair advantage, so the king chooses the deserving knight from the west village as the winner of the contest. The story is wildly predictable and not particularly interesting, although the methods of cheating are inventive. The biggest drawback to the text is the lack of individual names for the knights, who are identified only by their village’s direction, which leads to many repetitions of “the knight from the west village.” Grimard’s pleasant illustrations show a medieval world of castles, ornate costumes and flying banners. She depicts the winning knight as a serious young man who smiles only twice in the story, when he is carrying a little disabled boy who can’t walk properly. Earnest, but that's probably not enough to captivate readers. (Picture book/religion. 5-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-310-71645-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Zonderkidz
Review Posted Online: April 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2011
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