Reviews
You'll Find Me
“Death is a particularly difficult topic to discuss with children, but this book helps to broach the subject gently and with respect for young people’s sensibilities. . . . An excellent choice for children who are dealing with the loss of a loved one or just learning about… View →
My Sister Is Sleeping
“highly recommended for family, daycare center, preschool, elementary school, and community library picture book collections for children ages 3-8.” — James A. Cox, Midwest Book Review View →
Lulu the One and Only
“This book does more than simply tell a single story of biracial experience: It talks about navigating everyday racism in sensitive, but frank, ways. This affirmation is just as important as the power phrase. . . . All children will benefit from this pitch-perfect discussion of… View →
Taking Time
“Author/illustrator Loring-Fisher has created something truly special with this picture book. . . .A must-have for anyone sharing books with young children—simply exquisite.”—starred, Kirkus Reviews View →
Growing Up Gorilla: How a Zoo Baby Brought Her Family Together
Growing Up Gorilla by Clare Hodgson Meeker is heartwarming true story chronicles what happened after a mother gorilla gave birth for the first time and then walked away from her newborn baby at Seattle’s Woodland Park. . . Profusely illustrated throughout with full color… View →
https://amomssparetime.blogspot.com/2019/08/review-lion-of-sky-haiku-for-all.html Review: Lion of the Sky—Haiku for All Seasons by Laura Purdie Salas and Merce Lopez you gasp as I roar, my mane exploding, sizzling—… View →
You're Strong With Me
“A book to excite children about animal life and reassure them of the lasting love from elders.”—Kirkus Reviews View →
Chelm for the Holidays
“Chelm is a real Polish town in Poland, but more importantly, it is a mythical place where some very silly things happen. This collection includes stories about 10 Jewish festivals, including the weekly Shabbat. Some are adaptations of Jewish folktales, and some are original, but… View →
A Scarf for Keiko
“It’s 1942 and America is at war with the Empire of Japan. Sam’s elementary school class is knitting socks for soldiers and Sam is a terrible knitter. Keiko is a good knitter, but some kids at school don’t want anything to do with her because the Japanese have… View →
A Hoopoe Says Oop!: Animals of Israel
“Any author can find a rhyme for ‘cow’ or ‘moo.’ By the time they start school, most kids have read dozens of books about farm animals, but they may not have seen an ibex or a hyrax or a hoopoe. This board book would make an excellent compendium for children View →
Listen!: Israel's All Around
“Some people believe that the sound effects are the best part of a comic book. This story is for them. If someone removed all the words from a graphic novel except for the sound effects, it would sound a lot like this board book. Sample text: ‘Rumble, bumble, zoom, zoom,… View →
I Got a Chicken for My Birthday
Laura Gehl is the author of the popular PEEP AND EGG series. When I saw she had written about getting a chicken as a birthday present I knew I had to read it. My nieces love their chickens and even take them… View →
Weird & Wonderful Science Experiments Volume 3: Build It: Build rockets and racers and test energy and forces!
Grades 1 – 3, Grades 4 – 5: This book has easy to follow instructions to do home experiments. Many of the experiments can be done completely by children without any adult supervision. Each experiment tells what you will be making, the supplies you will need, and step… View →
Bubbe's Got the Beat
“A close-knit Jewish family’s preparations for Shabbat are set to a hip-hop beat in this attractive board book. Each lively four-line verse is sung by a smiling boy sporting a backwards baseball cap. His gray-haired Bubbe, wearing a sunny yellow apron, dances along waving a… View →
“This is an extraordinary book, one that can make the needed connection for young children to see human beings as more than their circumstances.”—starred, Kirkus Reviews View →
The Whispering Town
“This picture book with a graphic novel sensibility tells the story of a young girl, Anett, whose family is harboring Jewish refugees in a Danish fishing village. Anett brings food to the mother and child hidden in her cellar, and helps guide them to boats on one moonless night.… View →
Moti the Mitzvah Mouse
“Lots of people commit acts of mischief when no one is looking. Moti the mouse secretly commits good deeds. Moti lives under the kitchen sink in the home of a white, Jewish family, but he sometimes sneaks out to perform a ‘mitzvah.’ The term is a traditional Hebrew word View →
The Cricket and the Ant: A Shabbat Story
Source: The Horn Book Guide to Children’s and Young Adult Books Title: The Cricket and the Ant: A Shabbat Story Reviewer name: Sarah Hannah Gómez Spring 2017 In an Israeli retelling of “The Ant and the Grasshopper,” Cricket plays music all week and leaves… View →
Strange Fruit: Billie Holiday and the Power of a Protest Song
“Lynching: a strange and difficult but important topic for a song—and for this picture book. . . . A must-read, must-discuss that will speak to children and linger with adults.”—starred, Kirkus Reviews View →
Hanukkah Delight!
“In brief board-book form Newman revisits the familiar Hanukkah traditions she successfully introduced in Eight Nights of Chanukah, illustrated by Elivia Savadier (2005), and Here Is the World, illustrated by Susan Gal (2014). Here the holiday stands on its own without parodying a… View →
Shalom Everybodeee!: Grover's Adventures in Israel
“The best way to experience this book is to find someone who does a really good Grover impression for a read-aloud. Grover has one of the most distinctive voices in the history of children’s television, and all Sesame Street fans will hear that voice in their heads as soon as View →
Alice + Freda Forever: A Murder in Memphis
‘Alice + Freda Forever’s’ Alexis Coe on a Shocking, Forgotten Case of Teenage Lesbian Murder Books | By Karen Abbott | October 9, 2014 Karen Abbott, the author of the new Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy: Four Women Undercover in the Civil War, and Alexis Coe,… View →
Sadie's Lag Ba'Omer Mystery
“This delicious story fills a need: an elementary grades’ explanation of an historical holiday in a stand-alone book smartly targeted to its audience that delivers to children and the adults who read it to them. Highly recommended for expanding celebration information and for View →
The Championship!: Book 4
“When two of their schoolmates are kidnapped, Tao and his friends team up to find them. In the fourth installment of this French graphic-novel series, Richard and Ryser set aside their usual short gags for a single book-length mystery: the disappearance of Master Snow’s two… View →