Post­ed by Nat Bern­stein

It’s rare that a children’s book about doing a mitz­vah tugs at adult read­ers’ heart­strings, but a new sto­ry by Michelle Edwards near­ly reduced me to weep­ing at the office this morning:

A Hat for Mrs. Gold­man: A Sto­ry About Knit­ting and Love is about a friend­ship between a young girl from a Mex­i­can Amer­i­can fam­i­ly named Sophia and her neigh­bor, the epony­mous old­er Jew­ish woman who knits hats for new­borns, chil­dren, and adults in their com­mu­ni­ty. ​“Keep­ing kep­pies warm is our mitz­vah,” Mrs. Gold­man tells Sophia, ​“and a mitz­vah is a good deed.”

Sophia makes pom-poms for Mrs. Goldman’s hats and accom­pa­nies her on walks with Mrs. Goldman’s besweatered dog, Fifi. But as the weath­er turns cold, Sophie begins to wor­ry: Mrs. Gold­man doesn’t have a hat of her own! ​“Mrs. Goldman’s kep­pie must be very cold,” Sophia frets, and decides to knit her neigh­bor a hat her­self — but when she final­ly casts off, her hat for Mrs. Gold­man is full of lumps and bumps and holes!

You can guess how the sto­ry ends, but Edwards adds a cou­ple unex­pect­ed, ten­der details to the story’s res­o­lu­tion that adults, too, will find touch­ing — I actu­al­ly sighed aloud read­ing it on my own! The book includes knit­ting instruc­tions for mak­ing a hat and pom-poms just like Sophia’s, and love­ly illus­tra­tions by G. Bri­an Karas.

Relat­ed Content:

• Dina Wein­stein: The Lega­cy of Robert Kim­mel Smith
• Jan­ice Stein­berg: The Last Jew of Boyle Heights
• Jen­nifer Traig: Eat Me