Chil­dren’s

Cel­e­brate Passover with Mat­zoh, Maror and Memories

Deb­o­rah Heilig­man; Joel Iskowitz, illus.; Shi­ra Stern, consultant
  • Review
By – November 14, 2011
Cel­e­brate Passover is anoth­er book in Nation­al Geographic’s Hol­i­days Around the World series, which also includes Hanukkah and Rosh Hashanah/​Yom Kip­pur. The infor­ma­tion in the book is sim­ple and clear, writ­ten in suc­cinct lan­guage. The use of white space, large fonts, and bright col­or pho­tos is visu­al­ly appeal­ing to read­ers. This book is appro­pri­ate for any children’s library, allow­ing non-Jew­ish chil­dren to read about and under­stand Passover and the relat­ed Jew­ish cus­toms. The book’s sim­ple lan­guage also makes it an effec­tive readaloud for younger chil­dren. The book begins with a clear expla­na­tion of the ori­gins of Passover in Egypt. The text con­tin­ues with sequen­tial hol­i­day prepa­ra­tion and sym­bols, from search­ing for chametz to set­ting the seder table. Pho­tos of Passover prepa­ra­tions, tra­di­tions and cel­e­bra­tions from all over the world accom­pa­ny each page. Many pages con­tain more than one pho­to, show­ing the same events being cel­e­brat­ed dif­fer­ent­ly across the world. The book does an excel­lent job of intro­duc­ing and explain­ing Passover to chil­dren who aren’t famil­iar with the hol­i­day. It also expands on the knowl­edge of most Amer­i­can Jew­ish chil­dren, rein­forc­ing their con­nec­tion to Jews around the world. For ages 4 – 9.
Rachel Ros­ner is the Direc­tor of the Jew­ish Book Fes­ti­val in Rochester, NY. She also runs Jew­ish Fam­i­ly Pro­grams for the JCC, and has worked there since 1994. She holds a degree in Ear­ly Child­hood Edu­ca­tion from Syra­cuse University.

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