A com­mu­ni­ty grows as neigh­bor helps neigh­bor in this heart­warm­ing sto­ry inspired by the Gold­en Lad­der, a Jew­ish approach to char­i­ty intend­ed to cre­ate a fair soci­ety.

Moses isn’t used to jin­gle-jan­gle in his pock­et, so he’s reluc­tant to give mon­ey when Bare­foot Ben­ny clink-clanks his cup of change. But Mom encour­ages him to fol­low her exam­ple and help a neigh­bor. ​“Feels bet­ter to help than to need help,” she tells him, so drops a coin in Benny’s can.

Lat­er that spring, Benny’s for­tunes have improved. He’s cut­ting hair at the bar­ber shop, where he gives a free trim to Big Jim, who’s down on his luck. Soon Big Jim becomes the build­ing super­in­ten­dent, and then he and Moses vol­un­teer to babysit for Ms. Brown when she gets a last-minute job inter­view and can’t find child­care.

Through­out the year, each neigh­bor finds the oppor­tu­ni­ty to help anoth­er, and the com­mu­ni­ty grows and deep­ens through mutu­al sup­port. As it turns out, ​“Lit­tle enough is more than enough to share.”

Inspired by the twelfth-cen­tu­ry Jew­ish schol­ar Maimonides’s con­cept of the Gold­en Lad­der, this pic­ture book mod­els dif­fer­ent stages of giv­ing and pro­vides ample oppor­tu­ni­ty for thought­ful dis­cus­sions about char­i­ty, gen­eros­i­ty, and eco­nom­ics while telling an appeal­ing, acces­si­ble sto­ry. Back mat­ter fea­tures an author’s note and more infor­ma­tion about Mai­monides and the Gold­en Ladder.