This book was origin­l­ly pub­lished in Hebrew under the title Can You Spare a Grain of Sug­ar? by a well-known Israeli children’s author and is a best sell­er in Israel. It is an adap­ta­tion of one of Aesop’s Fables.

A hap­py lit­tle crick­et sings all week long until Fri­day morn­ing, when he over­sleeps and real­izes Shab­bat is com­ing. Then he has to bake and his cup­board is bare. He decides to solve his prob­lem by bor­row­ing ingre­di­ents from his neigh­bor, the ant. When a dis­as­ter comes to the ant, the crick­et comes to her res­cue. The author uses cute rhyming text to tell the story.

Chil­dren ages 3 to 8 will absorb the lessons about think­ing ahead when Shab­bat is com­ing, shar­ing with a neigh­bor and see­ing that there are dif­fer­ent kinds of neighborliness.

Tel Aviv-born Nao­mi Ben-Gur has writ­ten over 40 children’s books and is a children’s book edi­tor for an Israeli pub­lish­er. Sha­har Kober is an Israeli illus­tra­tor of over 30 children’s books and pro­vides whim­si­cal, bright-col­ored illus­tra­tions for this book.