Chil­dren’s

The Oppo­sites of My Jew­ish Year

L. N. Dion; Julie Olson, illus.
  • Review
By – August 6, 2012
The con­cept of oppo­sites — loud/​quiet, big/​small, open/​closed, high/​low, smooth/​rough, on/​off, near/​far, up/​down, and in/​out — is pre­sent­ed by show­ing chil­dren observ­ing the hol­i­days of Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kip­pur, Sukkot, Sim­chat Torah, Hanukkah, Tu B’Shevat, Purim, Passover, Shavuot, and Shab­bat. Famil­iar hol­i­day sym­bols such as Jon­ah and the fish, the lulav and etrog, Purim masks, and search­ing for the afikomen help young chil­dren under­stand these oppo­sites by giv­ing them con­crete, age-appro­pri­ate mean­ing. The illus­tra­tions are bright, pleas­ant, and most impor­tant, clear in depict­ing the oppo­sites on each page. A com­pan­ion to The Col­ors of My Jew­ish Year (1998), The Shapes of My Jew­ish Year (2003), and The Sounds of My Jew­ish Year (2003). 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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