Chil­dren’s

Jew­ish Alphabet

Janet Clement; Albert G. Rodriguez, illus.
  • Review
By – December 19, 2011

Jew­ish tra­di­tions, cus­toms, and reli­gious prac­tices are high­light­ed and illus­trat­ed in this alpha­bet book. 

The words are in rhyme. The entire alpha­bet is at the top of all twen­ty-six entries and the high­light­ed entry from each page is in bold face. Below the lin­ear alpha­bet, the high­light­ed let­ters are drawn to rep­re­sent the let­ter, as well as to depict the cho­sen word. There are also addi­tion­al words begin­ning with the same let­ter scat­tered on the page. This enlarges the Juda­ic theme and expands the child’s vocab­u­lary. Some of the alpha­bet choic­es are stretched a bit, such as using C for cloth illus­trat­ed as a tal­lit, or D for dip­ping (apples). The artist uses bold col­ors and inte­grates the let­ters into the illus­tra­tions cre­ative­ly. This is the first book by both author and illus­tra­tor. This book is a fine intro­duc­tion to many Jew­ish terms and sym­bols for very young chil­dren. For ages 3 – 6

Bar­bara Sil­ver­man had an M.L.S. from Texas Woman’s Uni­ver­si­ty. She worked as a children’s librar­i­an at the Cor­pus Christi Pub­lic Libraries and at the Cor­pus Christi ISD before retir­ing. She worked as a vol­un­teer at the Astor Juda­ic Library of the Lawrence Fam­i­ly JCC in La Jol­la, CA. Sad­ly, Bar­bara passed away is 2012.

Discussion Questions