Chil­dren’s

I Keep Kosher

Tami G. Raub­vo­gel & Rebec­ca Schwartz; Tova Katz, illus.
  • Review
By – August 31, 2011
Tak­ing a sub­ject that is com­plex and pre­sent­ing it sim­ply is an art, and that is what these authors do. Those who want to explain kashrut to very young chil­dren will want to pur­chase this col­or­ful­ly illus­trat­ed rhyming book. The pub­lish­er has cho­sen lam­i­nate-like pages, which makes them easy to turn and keep clean. There are only one or two sen­tences on each page and the pic­tures cor­re­late well with the text. The book begins by pre­sent­ing a child in her toy kosher kitchen with her two sets of dish­es, one for milk and one for meat. Lat­er, the child and her moth­er vis­it the kosher butch­er where the child’s moth­er tells her that beef and chick­en are good choic­es for some­one who keeps kosher. The author reminds us that indi­vid­u­als who keep kosher can­not con­sume milk and meat meals back to back and need to sep­a­rate those meals by sev­er­al hours. The author also shows us how to iden­ti­fy kosher foods by look­ing at their mark­ings. At the book’s close, the read­er sees men and boys wear­ing kipot and eat­ing in a kosher piz­za restau­rant where the foods are all dairy-based. Through­out the book the sen­tence, Keep­ing kosher every day means eat­ing in a spe­cial way.” is repeat­ed as a sim­ple and mem­o­rable refrain. The final page of the book is for adults. It explains kashrut in a more com­plex and sophis­ti­cat­ed way. For ages 2 – 6.
Marge Kaplan is a retired Eng­lish as a Sec­ond Lan­guage teacher. She is a con­sul­tant for the children’s lit­er­a­ture group for the Roseville, MN school sys­tem and is a sto­ry­teller of Jew­ish tales.

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