Chil­dren’s

If I Went to the Moon

Sara Blau; Vasil­isa Roma­nenko & Vitaliy Roma­nenko, illus.
  • Review
By – January 19, 2016

With wipe-clean pages for long-term ease of use, cute rhymes, and bright col­ors, Hachai has done a mas­ter­ful job of pack­ag­ing a mes­sage of sweet, uncom­pli­cat­ed faith and love into a few sim­ple, pleas­ant, read-aloud pages. This sto­ry fea­tures a lit­tle boy who won­ders about tak­ing a flight to the moon. Of course, if he goes, he will have to per­form all his dai­ly mitzvos there and that entails pack­ing quite a lot: wash­ing cup, sid­dur, mon­ey for tzeda­ka, food of all kinds in order to make every kind of bracha, toys so he can share, and a friend so he has some­one to share them with. And how can hon­or his par­ents if he doesn’t bring them along, too? Oh yes, and a mezuza to hang on each door — but then he needs some doors to hang them on, which means he needs to pack and bring his whole house. Does he have a suit­case big enough? Hmm … Maybe the best place to do all his mitzvos is right here on Earth, just the way he’s been doing them all along. 

Charm­ing, amus­ing, sure to pro­voke smiles, and with an empha­sis on always doing the right thing, this book is rec­om­mend­ed for ages 2 – 5.

Michal Hoschan­der Malen is the edi­tor of Jew­ish Book Coun­cil’s young adult and children’s book reviews. A for­mer librar­i­an, she has lec­tured on top­ics relat­ing to lit­er­a­cy, run book clubs, and loves to read aloud to her grandchildren.

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