The Sydney Taylor Shmooze

Not So Fast, Max: A Rosh Hashanah Visit with Grandma by Annette Schottenfeld, illustrated by Jennifer Kirkham Kalaniot Books (imprint of Endless Mountain) Category: Picture Books Reviewer: Gigi Perlman Pagliarulo Buy at Bookshop.org Family, Jewish traditions, and joyfully celebrating the holiday of Rosh Hashanah center this familiar-seeming tale. Max and his sister Emily are spending the day with Savta, their grandmother visiting from Israel. With the promise of making caramel apples to welcome in a sweet new year, hasty Max is impatient to get started, but Savta has a day of apple picking and orchard frolicking planned as well. Grumpy Max needs to be coaxed into enjoyment, but as the trio picks apples, plays, and tells stories together, he finally comes around to having fun, and even helps create a new Rosh Hashanah family tradition—caramel apples on the first day of the holiday, and apple cake on the second.    The writing and illustration styles are straightforw...

The Book of Secrets by Mat Tonti Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Gigi Pagliarulo Buy at Bookshop.org Author and illustrator Mat Tonti takes readers on a wild and unexpected ride in this fresh graphic novel take on traditional Jewish stories, embedding Jewish tales and folklore from a wide range of sources within a thoroughly modern narrative. Jewish siblings Ben and Rose are pulled into a dangerous mystery when they receive a mystical message from their missing Bubbe. As they discover the mysterious Book of Secrets, they become deeply immersed in its chapters -- a series of stories that will lead them along the path to rescuing their grandparents and preserving the history of their people -- if the Book’s characters themselves don’t take over first! The cryptic and powerful Doughlem, a Golem-like creature with the Hebrew word אמת baked into a crust atop his forehead, is a crucial throughline in this genre-traversing book, which weaves in tales from the Mishnah, the Midrash, Chasidim, ...

The Passover Mouse by Joy Nelkin Wieder, illustrated by Shahar Kober Category: Picture Books Reviewer: Gigi Perlman Pagliarulo An esoteric yet entertaining Talmudic conundrum is this basis for this lively, insightful and ultimately uplifting Passover story. Lonely widow Rivka has just finished fastidiously sweeping her home clean of chometz when a mischievous mouse steals a piece of bread from the pile of crumbs to be burnt and escapes. Thus ensues a wild and silly chase across the village and through houses, worrying frustrated villagers that there is ever more hidden chometz in their homes to clean before sundown. The wise town Rabbi consults the Talmud and returns a characteristically cryptic answer: “the matter is not decided,” so the townspeople must clean their homes once again to be sure. As they band together to clean and cook for the Seder, a sense of community spirit, forgiveness and togetherness draws all to Rivka’s usually empty home to celebrate Passover in friends...