Chil­dren’s

Ten Tzedakah Pennies

Joni Klein-Hig­ger; Tova Leff, illus.
  • Review
By – August 6, 2012
By count­ing back­wards from ten to one, this sim­ple sto­ry shows a lit­tle boy’s pen­nies being used for tzedakah. As the kipah-wear­ing child goes about his day doing things typ­i­cal of chil­dren of his age, like play­ing with his train, paint­ing at his easel, and build­ing with blocks, var­i­ous mem­bers of his fam­i­ly take pen­nies and drop them into his tzedakah box. When only one pen­ny is left, the boy hap­pi­ly puts it in the box him­self, exclaim­ing So many mitzvos, and one that’s just for me!” Short vers­es tell the sto­ry, and bright, real­is­tic but pedes­tri­an pic­tures add details. Paired with The Very Best Place for a Pen­ny (Dina Her­man Rosen­feld, Merkos, 1984), this will con­vey the mitz­vah of tzedakah to young chil­dren in a man­ner they will enjoy and under­stand. Rec­om­mend­ed for ages 2 – 4.
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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