Chil­dren’s

Bim and Bom: A Shab­bat Tale

Daniel J. Schwartz; Melis­sa Iwai, illus.

  • Review
By – November 7, 2011

Bim and Bom: A Shab­bat Tale is a pic­ture book about the expe­ri­ence of prepar­ing for and observ­ing Shab­bat. Both the text and illus­tra­tions effec­tive­ly con­vey the spir­i­tu­al unique­ness of Shab­bat. I par­tic­u­lar­ly enjoyed the illus­tra­tions, which show chal­lah bak­ing and can­dle light­ing. I also like that the book com­mu­ni­cates that peo­ple can use their dif­fer­ent tal­ents and strengths to help make Shab­bat a rich and spir­i­tu­al­ly reward­ing expe­ri­ence. Addi­tion­al­ly, I appre­ci­ate the eth­i­cal mes­sage con­veyed through both the text and illus­tra­tions. On Fri­days, Bim, who works as a car­pen­ter, builds homes for needy peo­ple. On Fri­days, Bom, who works as a bak­er, bakes chal­lah to give to needy peo­ple. The book gave me a greater appre­ci­a­tion for the role of chesed in Judaism. Bim and Bom: A Shab­bat Tale is a fun way of intro­duc­ing chil­dren to Shab­bat obser­vance. The book also teach­es that prepar­ing for Shab­bat and observ­ing Shab­bat can be, and fre­quent­ly are, spir­i­tu­al­ly rewarding.

Nathan Weissler is a senior in high school and lives in Chevy Chase, MD with his fam­i­ly. He has been writ­ing reviews for Jew­ish Book World for two years. Nathan loves to read, espe­cial­ly books relat­ed to Judaism and history.

Discussion Questions