Chil­dren’s

Passover is Here!

Bob­by Pearl­man; Chris­tel Desmoin­aux, illus.
  • Review
By – August 6, 2012
A lit­tle boy tells the sto­ry of Passover, explains his family’s prepa­ra­tions for the hol­i­day, and describes their Seder. Bright, cheer­ful pic­tures dec­o­rate the sto­ry, with a large flap reveal­ing extra details on almost every page. There is more text than in most nov­el­ty books of this sort, and young chil­dren may be con­fused by some of the vocab­u­lary, such as dev­as­tat­ing” and her­itage.” The advan­tage of the exten­sive text is that it allows the mean­ing of Passover to be explored, as when Grand­pa tells the fam­i­ly that ask­ing ques­tions, espe­cial­ly dur­ing the Seder, is a sign of free­dom. If we are free to ask ques­tions, then we are free to find our own answers.” This lib­er­al inter­pre­ta­tion fol­lows estab­lished belief and the cus­tom­ary order of the seder. For ages 5 – 7.
Lin­da R. Sil­ver is a spe­cial­ist in Jew­ish children’s lit­er­a­ture. She is edi­tor of the Asso­ci­a­tion of Jew­ish Libraries’ Jew­ish Val­ues­find­er, www​.ajl​jew​ish​val​ues​.org, and author of Best Jew­ish Books for Chil­dren and Teens: A JPS Guide (The Jew­ish Pub­li­ca­tion Soci­ety, 2010) and The Jew­ish Val­ues Find­er: A Guide to Val­ues in Jew­ish Children’s Lit­er­a­ture (Neal-Schu­man, 2008).

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