High Holiday Books for Young Children

By Helen Mintz Belitsky

All About Rosh Hashanah
All About Yom Kippur
By Judyth Groner and Madeline Wikler
Illustrated by Bonnie Gordon-Lucas
32 pages. Kar-Ben Publishing. $2.99.

 

Rosh Hashanah gives us a chance to find ourselves. God accepts all prayers that come from the heart. Blowing the shofar is an alarm, warning us to change our ways.

We say to ourselves, "I promise to do this," and "I promise to do that." But the days slip by, and often our promises do not lead to action.

Wouldn't it be wonderful to have a book that was able to impress children with these truths at the heart of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur—but in a way that doesn't sound like preaching? Wikler and Groner have accomplished this by interspersing the teaching material in their two books with legends and folk tales—accessible, appealing stories whose kernels of wisdom are both telling and touch the heart.

Here's an example: A rabbi tried to find a way to teach a gossipy girl that words can hurt. He tells her to take a pillow to the town square, cut it open and shake out the feathers. When she does as bidden, the rabbi tells her to gather the feathers up again. The child gasped. "But that's impossible," she said. "You are right," said the rabbi. "It is not possible to take back all the untrue things you say about others. You must be careful with the words you speak. Once sent on their way, they cannot be gathered again."

All About Rosh Hashanah and All About Yom Kippur are books that children, ages 5 and up, can read to find a wealth of information that ordinary holiday books don't include.

"These books were among our first," says Judyth Groner, co-founder, 22 years ago, of Kar-Ben Books, a leading Jewish children's book publisher. "At the time, our goal was to make the holidays user-friendly for families with young children—including many with parents who had little Jewish background themselves. We found the High Holiday themes difficult to explain and chose the medium of the folk tale to convey many of the ideas."

Groner, who co-authored the book with co-founder Madeline Wikler, says that the second focus of the book was to give parents information on holiday blessings they can say at home. "Many families want to say appropriate blessings around the holiday table but don't know them. So we include the blessings over candles and challah, over apples and honey for a sweet New Year, the kiddush over wine, and an abbreviated grace for after meals. We also included the music for the blessings along with some other children's holiday songs."

The books, which have sold 30,000 copies since they were first published, and have been used by Hebrew schools as a textbook, have recently undergone a face-lift. "In a neon world," Groner laughs, "they needed to be in color. The artist, Bonnie Gordon-Lucas, developed lovely borders, spot illustrations and illuminated letters." And, she continues, "in a gender-neutral world, we also changed some of the language. We hope a new generation of young families will find them useful."