This rhyming tale is based on a midrash that high­lights the impor­tance of watch­ing every­day speech and the val­ue of care­ful­ly choos­ing one’s words. In this short sto­ry, the parts of the body argue as they attempt to prove which of them is the most impor­tant — which one is the king and mas­ter of them all. Each makes its case for supe­ri­or­i­ty, but the tongue man­ages to demon­strate that by a mis­spo­ken word, the entire body can be put into exis­ten­tial dan­ger, and that care­ful­ly and delib­er­ate­ly choos­ing what to say can often make the dif­fer­ence between life and death.

This cheer­ful­ly and humor­ous­ly illus­trat­ed book is val­ue-laden and can be used by teach­ers, group lead­ers, or par­ents to bring impor­tant lessons to life in group set­tings or one-on-one. It can aid in learn­ing to nav­i­gate rela­tion­ships and make friends, and is rec­om­mend­ed for ages 3 to 6.