Talia loves to lis­ten to spo­ken lan­guage. The syl­la­bles sug­gest words and ideas as she absorbs the sounds. But when the names of things are Hebrew, some con­fu­sion results. This pic­ture book is part of a series by Lin­da Elovitz Mar­shall in which Talia’s under­stand­ing of Hebrew ter­mi­nol­o­gy mixed with Eng­lish sounds leads to delight­ful mis­un­der­stand­ings and, ulti­mate­ly, to learning. 

When Passover arrives, Talia knows that the book­let giv­en to each seder par­tic­i­pant is called a Hag­gadah. It sounds to her like this book must be about hugs. Warm, affec­tion­ate Talia can’t wait for the hug­ging to begin. But instead of enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly hug­ging one anoth­er, the assem­bled fam­i­ly mem­bers share sto­ries about the ancient Israelites as they final­ly attain their free­dom from slav­ery in Egypt. Talia hears about their leader, Moses. She hears songs of grat­i­tude to God for sav­ing the Jews. She eats deli­cious food and hunts for a hid­den afiko­man. Activ­i­ty, fun, and fas­ci­nat­ing sto­ries abound, but she still doesn’t see a whole lot of hug­ging. Her grand­moth­er explains that the word Hag­gadah means ​“telling,” which is why it recounts the sto­ry so clear­ly and well. By the end of the book, Talia has not only learned much about the hol­i­day, but has also received her long-await­ed hug from her lov­ing grandmother. 

The text is accom­pa­nied by col­or­ful illus­tra­tions which present Talia, her fam­i­ly, and their seder in an appeal­ing way. An after­word tells the read­er more about the hol­i­day and the seder.