One Fri­day at preschool, Leah and her class­mates get a les­son in mak­ing chal­lah. Each child gets enough dough for her very own loaf. Pat, roll, pull! Leah’s braid­ing skills, how­ev­er, are not ter­ri­bly advanced and Leah is wor­ried about her friends’ reac­tions. But rather than laugh­ing at her, her sup­port­ive friends laugh right along with her, imag­in­ing their loaves as marsh­mal­low fam­i­lies or ice cream moun­tains or bal­loons about to burst. And sur­prise! When the loaves come out of the oven, they look just right for Shab­bat din­ner. It’s a lit­tle puz­zling that Leah’s braid­ing mantra is ​“over, under”; most peo­ple prob­a­bly braid ​“over, over” (or per­haps ​“over from the right, over from the left”), and the illus­tra­tions, with their big-eyed lit­tle girls, bor­der on the cutesy. But the book nice­ly con­veys the joy tak­en in learn­ing some­thing new and in hav­ing good friends to share it with. The char­ac­ters’ embrace and celebra­tion of imper­fec­tion is par­tic­u­lar­ly wel­come and makes the book a sol­id choice for shar­ing in a class­room set­ting. Chal­lah recipe includ­ed. Rec­om­mend­ed for ages 2 to 5.