The Sydney Taylor Shmooze

The Moving Box Sukkah by Leah Rachel Berkowitz, illustrated by Sharon Vargo Apples & Honey Press (imprint of Behrman House Publishing), 2023 Category: Picture Books Reviewer: Jeff Gottesfeld Buy at Bookshop.org A few years ago on the campus of my synagogue, Adat Ari El in North Hollywood CA, Rabbi Jessica Yarkin taught a super cool religious school autumn lesson by using her car as the foundation for a sukkah. Two open doors plus the main car body plus some pine fronds, and there's room for a chair underneath. Et voilà! In The Moving Box Sukkah , author Berkowitz and illustrator Vargo do the same, in a poignant mother-son story of moving, displacement, adaptation, improvisation, and reconnection to both the distant and immediate past. The narrator is a boy whose mom has just moved him to the city from a place where sukkah-building was not hard. No dad in the picture, literally or figuratively. Here in the city, the boy longs for his transitional object from the past, a blue bla...

Maybe It Happened This Way: Bible Stories Reimagined by Rabbi Leah Rachel Berkowitz and Erica Wovsaniker, illustrated by Katherine Messenger  Apples & Honey Press (imprint of Behrman House), 2022 Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Jacqueline Jules   Buy at Bookshop.org Did Noah procrastinate when building the ark, hoping that the people would change their ways and there would be no need for a flood? Did Abram and Sarai break idols together? Was Moses ultimately relieved to hand over his leadership duties to Joshua? In Maybe It Happened This Way , authors Rabbi Leah Rachel Berkowitz and Erica Wovsaniker offer readers an opportunity to imagine themselves inside Biblical stories, experiencing the events. The text is poetic. When Eve bites into the forbidden apple, “the taste burst onto her tongue.” Many stories are told in first person, respecting a middle school reader’s ability to understand events through the eyes of an adult. Shifra, one of the midwives who risked her life...

Queen Vashti's Comfy Pants by Leah Rachel Berkowitz, illustrated by Ruth Bennett Apples & Honey Press (imprint of Behrman House) Category: Picture Books Reviewer: Sandy Wasserman Buy at Bookshop.org In perfect rhyme the reader learns about the lesser-known Purim heroine, Queen Vashti! She’s enjoying a fine afternoon with her friends, wearing not-fancy clothes, not ready to perform for the king, but playing cards, drinking tea, and noshing - wearing ‘comfy pants!’ This book is hilarious! Not irreverent, just filled with chutzpah! When the king summons her to dance, assuming she’’ll come just because of his directive - well no! Vashti is not having any of it! Not even when his messenger tries to drag her to entertain, does she budge! - This book is all about a woman’s right to say “NO!” for anything! The illustrations are to die for, with their colorful, whimsical Persian harem feel… And Vashti’s harem-of-friends! They are one-solid-sisterhood of “NO!” She’s got her chevreh, her ...