Chil­dren’s

On This Night: The Steps of the Seder in Rhyme

N. Stein­er; Wendy Edel­son, illus
  • Review
By – May 30, 2013
Sup­pose you are invit­ed to a seder where a very young child is to be present. Do you know what to bring? Bring this lit­tle book. It will become his or her very own Hag­gadah. The sto­ry is told in the illus­tra­tions as well as the words. The fun starts with the cov­er. What is going through the head of the lit­tle boy with the mis­chie­vous smile? Each step of the meal, named in Hebrew and described by a sim­ple, brief text, is illus­trat­ed with charm­ing, bright, hap­py pic­tures that demon­strate both fig­u­ra­tive­ly and lit­er­al­ly what takes place dur­ing the seder. From cov­er to cov­er, one sees a jol­ly fam­i­ly enjoy­ing the Seder. While the women and chil­dren look just like the read­ers’ own, per­haps not all the men do. They have long beards, dress in black and wear black hats, not yarmulkes. This is an oppor­tu­ni­ty to explain to the old­er chil­dren that we Jews have the free­dom to fol­low our reli­gion and to dress in a vari­ety of ways, none of which are for­bid­den. A list of the steps of the seder, with expla­na­tions, appears inside the back cov­er. The book has plas­tic coat­ed pages, so unlike the stained pages of most vet­er­an Hag­gadot, it can be washed. I am order­ing four for myself. If your fam­i­ly has inter­mar­ried mem­bers, what bet­ter way is there to intro­duce Passover to their tod­dlers? Rec­om­mend­ed for ages 3 – 6
Mar­cia W. Pos­ner, Ph.D., of the Holo­caust Memo­r­i­al and Tol­er­ance Cen­ter of Nas­sau Coun­ty, is the library and pro­gram direc­tor. An author and play­wright her­self, she loves review­ing for JBW and read­ing all the oth­er reviews and arti­cles in this mar­velous periodical.

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