Chil­dren’s

It Only Takes A Minute

Bracha Goetz; Bill Bolton, illus.
  • Review
By – August 25, 2017

Hachai’s preschool series — with its lam­i­nat­ed wipe-clean pages and its clear, to-the-point mes­sages for young chil­dren — has a new offer­ing writ­ten by vet­er­an author Bracha Goetz. It Only Takes a Minute high­lights how devel­op­ing good val­ues (midot) ear­ly, and inte­grat­ing them deeply, results in the build­ing of char­ac­ter in young peo­ple as they mature and take their places in the next gen­er­a­tion of adults.

It only takes a minute, the author reminds us — not very long at all — to remem­ber to act kind­ly. Small ges­tures such as smil­ing or say­ing thank you go a long way in bring­ing hap­pi­ness to the lives of oth­ers. Although such ges­tures just take a moment, their impact is immea­sur­able. Ran­dom acts of kind­ness make the world a bet­ter place.

Bright­ly col­ored illus­tra­tions accom­pa­ny the sim­ple text.

Rec­om­mend­ed for ages 2 to 5.

Michal Hoschan­der Malen is the edi­tor of Jew­ish Book Coun­cil’s young adult and children’s book reviews. A for­mer librar­i­an, she has lec­tured on top­ics relat­ing to lit­er­a­cy, run book clubs, and loves to read aloud to her grandchildren.

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