Chil­dren’s

More Than Enough: A Passover Story

April Hal­prin Way­land; Katie Kath, illus.
  • Review
By – March 24, 2017

Young­sters expe­ri­ence Seder as bound­less fam­i­ly, fun, and kit­tens despite the dec­la­ra­tion of the title and the repeat­ed refrain dayenu” on every page. One thing fol­lows anoth­er at such rapid pace there is no chance to con­sid­er what would have been enough. The open­ing of the pic­ture book dilutes Seder prepa­ra­tions with mar­kets, col­ors, res­cued cats and rain, lead­ing read­ers to won­der at the focus and the mes­sage. Read­ers soon dis­cov­er the care­free day is pos­si­ble because grand­ma is doing the Seder. Once in her door, the parts of the Passover ser­vice appear in tight order, with each part con­sid­ered enough”. Chil­dren will review the impor­tant cus­toms: noth­ing is explained, only list­ed or depict­ed. In rapid order we see the plate with quote sym­bols of free­dom” (nev­er mind that the chil­dren who made the charoset made a sym­bol of slav­ery), the four ques­tions, the epony­mous song Dayenu, the big meal, the afikomen search, the door open for Eli­jah, and every­one singing Chad Gadya. The sto­ry ends with the best of times, a sleep­over at grandma’s, with­out ever con­nect­ing the free­ing of the kit­ten from its con­fin­ing res­cue shel­ter box to the Jews being freed from the con­fines of bondage. A lul­la­by of Eliyahu puts a big dayenu on kiss­es, kit­tens, full tum­mies and rain before bed in a tent. Chil­dren are going to love the Passover cel­e­bra­tion from this slim vol­ume even if under­stand­ing exact­ly what the hol­i­day means is passed over. The book ends with a short, sound glos­sary and an author’s note that con­nects cats and the Dayenu song. Cute illus­tra­tions enliv­en a speedy read for ages 3 – 6.

Ellen G. Cole, a retired librar­i­an of the Levine Library of Tem­ple Isa­iah in Los Ange­les, is a past judge of the Syd­ney Tay­lor Book Awards and a past chair­per­son of that com­mit­tee. She is a co-author of the AJL guide, Excel­lence in Jew­ish Children’s Lit­er­a­ture. Ellen is the recip­i­ent of two major awards for con­tri­bu­tion to Juda­ic Librar­i­an­ship, the Fan­ny Gold­stein Mer­it Award from the Asso­ci­a­tion of Jew­ish Libraries and the Dorothy Schroed­er Award from the Asso­ci­a­tion of Jew­ish Libraries of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia. She is on the board of AJLSC.

Discussion Questions