Those accus­tomed to a thor­ough house-clean­ing before Passover will like­ly be intrigued to learn that the Beta Israel of Ethiopia pre­pare for the hol­i­day with a very dif­fer­ent rit­u­al. Instead of try­ing to remove every par­ti­cle of chametz from the home, the Beta Israel smash dish­es and then cre­ate new ones out of the remain­ing dust mixed with new clay. In Workitu’s Passover, the tit­u­lar young girl is ambiva­lent about this prac­tice but, through the sup­port of a strong female rel­a­tive, she learns how destruc­tion of old objects can cre­ate space for the new.

Authors Zaha­va Work­i­tu Goshen and Maayan Ben Hagai set the scene with a poet­ic descrip­tion of a village’s sounds: ​“a cow moo­ing, leaves blow­ing in the breeze, and the click­ing of her mother’s pes­tle and mor­tar.” In this world, slow and care­ful labor is required to pro­duce what is need­ed. Workitu’s sis­ter, Almaz, is enthu­si­as­tic about the new dress­es their father will weave for them for Passover, but Work­i­tu is dis­tressed: she finds the smash­ing of beau­ti­ful dish­es painful. Eden Spivak’s illus­tra­tion shows Work­i­tu sit­ting slumped on her bed, eyes down­cast. Sip­ping milk, she grasps her favorite cup with both hands and clos­es her eyes, as if think­ing about her immi­nent loss.

Work­i­tu is for­tu­nate to have the guid­ance of Aun­tie Bal­ain­ish, who patient­ly explains the impor­tance of main­tain­ing ties to the Jew­ish past, both recent and ancient. This con­nec­tion tran­scends geog­ra­phy, unit­ing dis­tant com­mu­ni­ties. It also val­i­dates the spe­cif­ic prac­tices of Beta Israel. Only by work­ing togeth­er with a wise, old­er woman, does Work­i­tu come to under­stand her own role in this chain of tra­di­tion. ​“Her old things were secret­ly hid­den inside the clay they were using to make new things,” she rea­sons to her­self. Dis­cus­sion alone is not enough to con­vince Work­i­tu, but hands-on activ­i­ty makes the abstract idea real. Artis­tic cre­ativ­i­ty is also insep­a­ra­ble from Workitu’s change of heart. A care­ful descrip­tion, with an accom­pa­ny­ing pic­ture, details the indi­vid­ual choic­es she makes in craft­ing a new jug to hold olive oil. Chil­dren will relate to the styl­ized form, with han­dle and pitch­er resem­bling an ear and a nose. Spi­vak even adds an eye and a smile, cap­tur­ing Workitu’s con­cep­tion of her pot­tery as almost human. Earth col­ors, and var­ied com­po­si­tion, give a uni­fied tone to the illus­tra­tions. Obser­vance of Passover unites the Jew­ish peo­ple every­where. Work­i­tu learns to hon­or that ide­al while cel­e­brat­ing her own com­mu­ni­ty and her dis­tinc­tive char­ac­ter as well.

This high­ly rec­om­mend­ed book includes an explana­to­ry afterword.