A garage in Jerusalem is the unusu­al set­ting for this charm­ing sto­ry of a fam­i­ly of ambu­lances that trans­port sick and hurt peo­ple to the hos­pi­tal. Each fam­i­ly mem­ber has his or her own duties and abil­i­ties, from the old­est to Avi, the small­est. Avi learns to zig and zag, to help load patients, and to work with his medic part­ner, Zack. On the first day after grad­u­a­tion from Ambu­lance School, Avi and Zack help Shi­ra, who has fall­en off her bike and has hurt her­self as she rushed to get home to help her moth­er pre­pare for Shab­bat. Zack splints her leg and togeth­er they trans­port Shi­ra to the hospital.

This is an extreme­ly enter­tain­ing introduc­tion to the sub­ject for preschool chil­dren and is excel­lent for units on res­cue and emer­gency vehi­cles, ​“help­ing oth­ers,” and life in Israel. The illus­tra­tions through­out show sam­ple res­cue vehi­cles. The page fol­low­ing the sto­ry explains that the sto­ry is based on the real work of Magen David Adom in Israel. A vocab­u­lary page at the end con­tains Eng­lish and some Hebrew words relat­ed to events in the sto­ry and has age-appro­pri­ate def­i­n­i­tions explain­ing items relat­ed to ambu­lance and hos­pi­tal work.

Love­ly, sim­ple pic­tures show the res­cue ve­hicles as hav­ing human char­ac­ter­is­tics, which beau­ti­ful­ly adds to the sto­ry. In addi­tion, there are well-drawn illus­tra­tions of places in Jerusalem, and signs and res­cue vehi­cles with Hebrew and Eng­lish writ­ing on them.

Jew­ish con­tent sup­ple­ments a sto­ry that will be pop­u­lar with the youngest read­er for its charm and focus on cars and trucks.