Happy Little Book
ticker Jan Barger Cohen
Start off your holidays with a charming book for young children
It's
Sukkah
Time!
pt....,
(then see what else is new for Rosh Hashanah and Sukkot).
ELIZABETH APPLEBAUM
AppleTree Editor
Apples and Honey: A Rosh Hashanah Story by Jonny
Zucker, with illustrations by Jan Barger Cohen.
Copyright 2002, published by Barron's
vvvvw.barronseduc.com 24 pages. $6.95.
What a little gem of a book for young children. With
charming illustrations and just a brief, rhyming text,
Apples and Honey manages to capture the sounds, feel
and tastes of the new year.
You open the book and, to paraphrase actress Sally
Field, you like this family, you redly like them. The
illustrations are gentle, friendly, loving, happy — you
want to be part of this family. There's a mom and dad,
two boys and a girl and grandparents, all preparing for
the holiday.
We crunch through the leaves on our way to synagogue.
Our friends smile and wave at us.
The family also hears the shofar (blown by a man
who looks remarkably like former Surgeon General C.
Everett Koop), goes to the river for tashlich (what a
lovely text here: "We say goodbye to the sad things
from last year by throwing crumbs into the river"),
eats a pomegranate and looks at the new moon of the
New Year. .
The back of this book also includes a well-written
and accurate (more of an anomaly that you mi ght
imagine in Jewish children's books) description of
Rosh Hashanah and its customs.
Here's a real bonus with Apples and Hong.. It's for
everybody.
Whether you're religiously observant or secular,
Jewish or gentile (if your Christian friends' young chil-
dren want to know about Rosh Hashanah, this would
make a great gift), you can't go wrong.
Avram's Gift by Margie Blumberg, with illustrations
by Laurie McGaw. Copyright 2003, published by MB
Publishing of Bethesda, Md. 50 pages. $19.95.
As you read through magazines, you likely have seen
advertisements foi- products that, gosh darn, do their
best to really tug at your heartstrings.
Created by companies whose names invariably fea-
ture words like "Exchange" or "Heritage," these
include painted plates of moms hugging their girls and
reading, "My Daughter, My Friend," or pic-
ture an ancient Indian warrior and the words,
"The Last Hero."
If that kind of thing appeals to you, then
Avrams Gifi likely is up your alley because this
book is so calculating, so completely deter-
mined to make you say, "How unforgettable."
The rest of us, however, are left gagging.
The first problem comes with your first
look at the book. The cover is downright
sappy, with a stern-looking elderly man (who
— what a surprise — turns out to be gentle
after all), his chubby-cheeked, admiring great-
great-grandson and a shofar. The cover likely
will grab the attention of parents with younger
children, but this is not a book for young chil-
dren, though the protagonist is a third-grader.
The text is lengthy and geared to children 12
and older.
The story focuses on a boy named Mark,
who profoundly dislikes a wooden-framed
photograph of his great-great-grandfather,
Avram. Mark thinks the picture is "scary"
(readers will be mystified because while Avram
appears serious, there's nothing scary about
him).
Mark is so consumed with this picture, in fact, that
while his mother is making Rosh Hashanah dinner
and commenting on the wonderful New Year, Mark
thinks, "how much nicer the year would be if they
could put a brand new picture in that old wooden
,,
frame.
When Mark goes to synagogue on Rosh Hashanah,
he is mesmerized by the shofar blower, Aaron Stein.
Mark's dream also is to blow the shofar.
Then, on to the meal. Mark's grandparents are visit-
ing from Baltimore, and Grandpa Morris loves to talk.
He talks about how he came to America, about tradi-
tion, and especially about his grandfather, Avram.
"You know," he says, "I'll bet that if you were to look
up the word love in the dictionary, you would find my
Grandpa Avram's picture right next to the definition."
Mark is astonished. Avram — the same scary-look-
ing man in the photograph?
Now Morris proceeds to tell the long — oh, so long
— story of how his father came to America to earn
money to bring his family over, and how Morris
stayed back in Poland with his grandfather Avram to
Tod Cot.n
A sk'Istoyf
,.Aura
wait for his father. It's one of those "life was so
good back then" routines, with his wonderful religious
grandparents (though Morris himself is not observant)
and that swell life in the shtetl.
Then it's time for Morris to come to the United
States, and when he leaves, Avram gives his grandson a
shofar, which makes his favorite sound, and which he
teaches Morris to blow.
At the end of the tale, Mark is so enthralled, he
hopes "this day would never end." Now he wants to
learn to blow the shofar just like Grandpa Morris, the
way he learned from his grandfather. Mark even hangs
the once-dreaded photo of Avram in his room, right
next to his pennants for the Baltimore Orioles.
As the book finally, finally comes to an end, Mark is
blowing the very shofar his great great-grandfather
gave to Morris, and he is carried back to "another
place and time ... to the very spot where his shofar
came from, where his great-great-grandpa Avram sat,
with his eyes tightly shut, in the synagogue, listening
to his favorite sound."
There's an important word to keep in mind if you're
considering buying this book. Don't.
HAPPY LITTLE BOOK on page 102
9/12
• 2003
1 01