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9/3
1999
76 Detroit Jewish News
Phone: 1-888-908-0300
How often have you come across a
painting, a film or a book that you
feel like you should like, that you
actually wont to like, but it just
makes your skin crawl?
This is a well-intentioned book
with an important goal: teaching
children to see the beauty of the
world and how to thank God by
making a blessing. Included are
brachot (in Hebrew and English) to
thank God for the sea, for the diver-
sity in the world, for bread and for
seeing a rainbow.
So what went wrong?
The first problem is the fact that
this book is so gosh-darn ecumeni-
cal. Diversity is good. Teaching
your children to respect and treat
others with kindness is good. But it's
so prevalent here (on every page!)
that you can't help but get an awful
gagging feeling, such as experi-
enced when a physician uses a
tongue depressor to examine the
back of your throat. This can make
reading difficult.
Secondly, the illustrations — while
nice and colorful — are simply weird.
I'd describe the style as 1960s mod
poster meets someone who just could-
n't make it as an illustrator for a sappy
greeting-card company.
"Read it with someone you love,"
gushes a reviewer, whose remarks
are prominently placed on the back
of The God Around Us. My
advice? Read this book to that tele-
marketer who just won't leave you
alone or to that neighbor who never
returned your shovel.
Molly's Pilgrim by Barbara Cohen,
with illustrations by Daniel Mark
Du:Y. (Beech Tree Press, 1998;
S 3.99.)
Originally published in 1983, then
made into an Academy Award-win-
ning short film, this book has been
re-published with new, and really
lovely, illustrations.
It's the story of Molly, the daughter
of immigrants, who is constantly
taunted and teased by her class-
mates. She is the only Jewish girl at
her school, and she longs to return
to New York City.
One day, Molly's teacher, Miss
Stickley, asks the children to pre-
pare something special for Thanks-
iving. She wants them to make
dolls of the Pilgrims. Molly's mother
volunteers to help her daughter. In
the morning, Molly wakes to find a
clothespin doll that looks nothing
like the Pilgrims in Molly's book —
and everything like Molly's mother.
"What is a Pilgrim, shaynkeit?"
Mama asked. "A Pilgrim is some-
one who came here from the other
side to find freedom. That's me,
Molly. I'm a Pilgrim."
Molly's classmates mock the doll,
but not Miss Stickley, who gives it a
prominent place on her desk.
Molly's Pilgrim is a wonderfully
illustrated, delightful story that chil-
dren of all ages will love.
Sofer: The Story of a Torah Scroll
by Eric Ray. (Torah Aura Produc-
tions, 1999; $6.95.)
Author Eric Ray tells the story of
how he came to be a sofer [Torah
scribe] and what his duties today
entail. This book will serve as a
nice introduction to anyone unfamil-
iar with how a scribe works, and it
offers interesting details about
Hebrew letters and the parchment
on which a Torah is written.
The photographs are sometimes
good, sometimes less so. There's one,
inexplicably, so poorly cropped that
half the author's head is missing from
the page; and we could have done
without the picture, however modest,
of the man in the mikva.
Who Knows Ten? Children's Tales of
the Ten Commandments by Molly
Cone, with illustrations by Robin Brick-
man. (UAHC Press, 1998; $12.)
Who knows one reason to buy this
book?