The Tal­mu­dic expres­sion tikkun olam has become a pop­u­lar sub­ject in children’s books, demon­strat­ing the impor­tance of social change in Jew­ish tra­di­tion. In One Small Spark, Ruth Spiro’s infor­ma­tive text and Vic­to­ria Tentler-Krylov’s col­or­ful illus­tra­tions come togeth­er to con­vey a time­ly mes­sage about repair­ing the world. Spiro and Tentler-Krylov guide chil­dren toward a real­is­tic way of pro­mot­ing progress — both inside their com­mu­ni­ties and out.

The book opens with a bird’s‑eye panora­ma of a city. On the far left of the two-page spread stands a build­ing that appears to be New York City’s Eldridge Street Syn­a­gogue, but the illustration’s scenes of busy activ­i­ty and diver­si­ty could take place in many oth­er loca­tions. Spiro begins with a state­ment and a ques­tion: ​“Imag­ine the world you want to live in. If that’s not the world you see, will you cre­ate it?” Her tone com­bines log­ic with feel­ings, encour­ag­ing young read­ers to trust their own per­cep­tions and to think where they might lead. Spiro uses the words ​“choice” and ​“oppor­tu­ni­ty” to char­ac­ter­ize the path toward change, but grad­u­al­ly adds vocab­u­lary of imag­i­na­tion and spir­i­tu­al depth. She points out that kind­ness and pos­i­tive actions can gen­er­ate an empow­er­ing ​“spark,” which will then set off a chain reaction.

Tentler-Krylov’s images take flight and inspire. There is the lit­er­al flight of mul­ti­col­ored birds appear­ing in many scenes, but there is also the metaphor of ris­ing toward humanity’s high­est instincts. Every image is also ground­ed in real­i­ty. Chil­dren of dif­fer­ent back­grounds share art sup­plies in a class­room. Abled and dis­abled folks, the old and young, pedes­tri­ans and cyclists, and pets and their own­ers are all part of this col­lage of a bright present and a poten­tial­ly bet­ter future. Help­ful acts are inte­grat­ed unob­tru­sive­ly, as a nat­ur­al part of tikkun olam. A per­son using a walk­er receives assis­tance; work­ers repair a bro­ken see­saw. Using water­col­ors and dig­i­tal tools, Tentler-Krylov draws the reader’s eye to dif­fer­ent objects: bright red footwear, an emer­ald-green pock­et­book, blue paint over­flow­ing a can. The inclu­sion of chal­lah loaves in sev­er­al pic­tures rein­forces the Jew­ish nature of the book’s cen­tral con­cept, and the bread is shared with mem­bers of the larg­er community.

The ini­tial city scene is one of promise not yet real­ized; black and gray clouds hov­er in the back­ground. Near the end of the book, the city reap­pears — this time crowned with bright lights and many-hued birds fly­ing above a place that has begun to reach its poten­tial. One Small Spark cap­tures the mes­sage that in a world in need of change, even some­thing beau­ti­ful can be made better.