With her trademark sense of lighthearted fun, author-illustrator Amalia Hoffman presents readers with a delightful family of bears who are celebrating the Passover seder. The little bear is an inventor; he turns his toy elephant into an “Afiko-Sniffer” to sniff out where grandma will hide the afikomen.
Once the seder starts, young Bear cannot wait until the middle matzah is broken and hidden. The story shows the many steps needed to create the seder plate. As the young bears help prepare this ceremonial plate, readers learn what goes on it and what each dish is made of. Bear trains his elephant Afiko-Sniffer to find these items. It does — but alas, it fails to find the hidden matzah. When Bear grabs his tool kit to repair his elephant’s sniffer, the afikomen falls out of the chest. Hooray, Bear wins the prize!
Pictures depict an extended family, with three generations celebrating happily together. The book’s bright colors and simple graphics are sure to engage readers. A brief note at the end explains the Greek roots of the word afikomen.
Ellen G. Cole, a retired librarian of the Levine Library of Temple Isaiah in Los Angeles, is a past judge of the Sydney Taylor Book Awards and a past chairperson of that committee. She is a co-author of the AJL guide, Excellence in Jewish Children’s Literature. Ellen is the recipient of two major awards for contribution to Judaic Librarianship, the Fanny Goldstein Merit Award from the Association of Jewish Libraries and the Dorothy Schroeder Award from the Association of Jewish Libraries of Southern California. She is on the board of AJLSC.
