Friday, September 3, 2010
Rosh Hashanah
The Jewish High Holy Days are right around the corner.* Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, starts at sundown on September 8th. Here are three great children’s books about the holiday:
Kimmel, Eric A, Isaac L. Peretz, and Jill Weber. Even Higher!: A Rosh Hashanah Story. New York: Holiday House, 2009.
Author Eric Kimmel uses an old Ukranian drinking song to help retell a famous Yiddish short story about a rabbi who skips town every year right before the holidays.
Gerstein, Mordicai. The White Ram: A Story of Abraham and Isaac. New York: Holiday House, 2006.
Caldecott award-winning author/illustrator Mordicai Gerstein retells one of the scariest and most puzzling stories of the Bible.
Wayland, April H, and Stéphane Jorisch. New Year at the Pier: A Rosh Hashanah Story. New York: Dial Books for Young Readers, 2009.This wonderful picture book about celebrating Rosh Hashanah in Los Angeles won the 2010 Sydney Taylor Book Award. I had the pleasure of sitting next to the author at an ALA function a couple of years ago. She was very bubbly.
*Literally–we live about 3 blocks away from a major Chabad center.
