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Good Night to You features an Orthodox Jewish family going through their nighttime routine. Written in rhyme, it is a wind-down book, with the children saying goodnight both to the world and to themselves from head to toe. Though some of the rhymes are forced and predictable, they are effective in reminding a child of their specialness and how much their family loves them.

The art uses a soft palette to create a cozy mood. The slightly blurred outlines of people and objects is a great choice for a bedtime book. Backmatter encourages parents to pair physical touching or “motions” with a goodnight meditation as part of the bedtime routine.

Jewish values are reinforced as a guide for conduct in a subtle manner. Hebrew and Yiddish words such as Hashem, keppie, and the Shema are incorporated and defined in a glossary. Jewish content is an essential element of the story that is well-integrated by both the text and art. Though the book may be aimed at Orthodox readers, it’s a sweet bedtime story for all Jewish children.

Reviewer Shanna Silva is an award-winning author and Broadway producer. She has written three children’s picture books: A Dog’s Guide to Being Human, Hannah’s Hanukkah Hiccups and Passover Scavenger Hunt, and over 60 hi/lo books for emerging readers. Her work has been featured in Kveller, national magazines, and anthologies. Shanna lives in New York with her family and a meshuggenah sheepadoodle.

Holocaust Remembrance Day begins this year on the night of April 13, 2026 and continues through April 14. Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, explains that Yom HaShoah is a national day of commemoration in Israel, memorializing the martyrs and heroes of the Holocaust.

Approaching the topic of the Holocaust with children can be tricky, but the US Holocaust Memorial Museum offers some guidance HERE, suggesting that 6th grade is a good starting point. In terms of literature, we must remember that a picture book format does not mean that a book is necessarily aimed at the youngest readers. There are many Holocaust-related picture books that offer short, pithy explorations of the topic for more mature young people.

Here are a few of the Holocaust related children’s books published in the last year.

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The life and legacy of Emma Lazarus, the poet whose words are imprinted on the Statue of Liberty, is presented in this lively and inspiring book. We see her as a young girl, passionate about writing, encouraged by parents who told her she was a writer and a poet. Her parents published a book of Emma’s work and shared it with family and friends.

Growing up in New York City during a wave of refugee immigration, she often heard adults speaking harshly about the newcomers. She realized the negative way the adults referred to immigrants was likely the way her own ancestors had been perceived when they took refuge here generations before her. As a young woman, she volunteered at Ward’s Island where many detained refugees were housed, speaking with many of them, bringing food and clothing, and establishing job training programs. Reading a derogatory article about immigrants in a popular magazine, she countered with her own article. She continued using the power of her pen to write more pieces until she was able to change many people’s views on the situation. Her popularity led to her being invited to write the poem as part of the fundraising activities for the Statue of Liberty’s pedestal. After her death, this poem was engraved on a plaque inside the pedestal.

Digital art bring us into the historical period of Emma’s life. Backmatter adds to the value of the book. Emma’s words have been read by millions, a symbol of freedom, inspiration, and hope, powerful words for those still in need of safe refuge today. In these difficult times, this book is an important addition for all children’s libraries, reminding us of the fundamental values of our nation.

While this book is light on Jewish content, we do learn that Emma’s family fled persecution in Europe, traveled through Brazil, and finally found refuge in the United States, one of the first Jewish families in this country.

Reviewer Suzanne Grossman is happily retired after 30 years as a children’s library media specialist. She had the opportunity to share books, tell stories and encourage the joy of reading with thousands of children. The moment a child enters a story, experiences life as a character does and walks through the setting the author has created is magical. She is honored to have the opportunity to be part of The Jewish Book Garden, working to bring the best of the newest Jewish children’s literature into the lives of young readers. Happy reading, everyone!

On Instagram, I curate the KidlitKippot account to share examples of Jewish representation in children’s book illustrations. I especially like to share Jewish rep from non-Jewish books, but when it’s holiday time I am happy to delve into Judeo-centric titles.

This Passover, I shared a post each day that illustrated “matzah in unusual places” — just because it made me laugh. Enjoy this matzah-around-the-world hunt, and click on any title below to read its Jewish Book Garden review. I invite you to subscribe to KidlitKippot!

1st Night of Passover: Matzah in the walls and on the faces

• In Our Teeny Tiny Matzah House by Bill and Claire Wurtzel (Apples and Honey Press, 2022).

2nd Night of Passover: Matzah on the slab in the lab

• Frankenstein's Matzah: A Passover Parody by K. Marcus, ill Sam Loman (Intergalactic Afikoman, 2024)

3rd Night of Passover: Matzah on a fallen tree in the middle of the road

• Roadside Seder by Anna Levine, ill. Naama Lahav (Apples & Honey Press, 2025)

4th Night of Passover: Matzah on top of Mount Everest

• Passover on Everest by Rachelle Burk, ill. Craig Orback (Intergalactic Afikoman, 2025)

5th Night of Passover: Matzah in the time-space continuum

• One Little Goat: A Passover Catastrophe by Dara Horn, ill. Theo Ellsworth (Norton Young Readers, 2025)

6th Night of Passover: Matzah in a boat

• Raquela’s Seder by Joel Edward Stein, ill. Sara Ugolotti (Kar-Ben Publishing, 2022)

7th Night of Passover: Matzah in the sky like a Bat Signal

• Matzah Man to the Rescue! by Eric Kimmel, ill. Charlie Fowkes (Apples & Honey Press, 2024)

8th Night of Passover: Matzah in the White House

• Next Year in the White House: Barack Obama’s First Presidential Seder by Richard Michelson, ill. E.B. Lewis (Crown Books for Young Readers, 2025)

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This lovely book has a very important message for parents and children. It shows the feelings of a child with gender dysphoria and their struggle to explain themself to their family. The parents model the healthiest response to the revelation of the child's gender identity. The writing is simple and direct. The tone is primarily cheerful, as the anxiety is overcome and the ending is happy. The rich pastel colors (with rainbows and unicorns!) set the mood, with one purple and black spread accenting the stress before coming out. The illustrations portray children who appear younger than the nine year old protagonist, and this book would be most appealing to parents and their young children. It would be extremely helpful to any parent struggling to explain to their child a nonbinary or transgender classmate, neighbor, friend, or relative. It should be in every Jewish library's children’s section.

The Jewish content is vital to the story, as the title suggests. The family observes Shabbat, wears kippot, and says the traditional Shabbat blessings for the sons and the daughters. Their rapid acceptance of their transgender daughter suggests that they are liberal. This book would be suitable for any variety of Judaism.

Reviewer Kathryn Hall is a retired pediatrician, lifetime member of the Jane Austen Society of North America, volunteer librarian for her synagogue and for her local LGBT+ center, and active in her local PFLAG chapter. She has a special interest in Jewish children’s literature with LGBT+ content. She lives in Central California with her husband.

Multicultural Kid Blogs is a site which works to inspire and support families, caregivers, educators, and community members raising the next generation of global citizens by posting content that celebrates diversity in all its forms. At their invitation, I’ve been doing a “Jewish Joy” series of interviews with diverse Jewish authors, beginning in September 2024 and still going strong.

The newest interview is with Lee Wind, an author dedicated to providing positive representation of both the queer and Jewish experiences . I’ve interviewed Lee several times, most recently on The Book of Life Podcast in June 2025.

Lee’s writing is both heartfelt and educational. He’s also an activist, championing diverse reading with his long-running blog I’m Here, I’m Queer, What the Hell Do I Read? and his new project We Are Stronger than Censorship.

Click the button to read Lee’s Jewish Joy interview!

READ LEE'S INTERVIEW

I must admit that I rather enjoyed the Covid-19 pandemic quarantine. As the synagogue preschool where I work pivoted to online learning, I got the chance to redesign my library storytimes in new and creative ways. At first I filmed storytime videos that were distributed to families at home; later, the children were grouped into classroom pods, and specialists (librarian, music teacher, etc) Zoomed with them.

To keep the children’s attention on Zoom, I mixed live read-alouds with games, dancing, videos, and puppet shows. With the help of my husband, I created a series of Dog & Frog videos, with puppets telling corny jokes (and over-explaining them for the preschool audience, LOL). Here’s our Passover video, which I offer here for your amusement. Feel free to borrow the jokes or the puppet show idea for your own library, classroom, or entertainment at home. If you’d like to see more Dog & Frog videos, you can find them HERE.

Happy Passover!

Heidi

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Volunteer Stacy Nockowitz, a member of the Jewish Kidlit Mavens group on Facebook, compiles a monthly list of forthcoming Jewish children’s literature, from board books to young adult. She provides images and PDF’s of these #NewJewishKidlit flyers, which you can see below.

For April 2026, we’ve got a 2-page flyer for board and picture books and single page flyer for middle grade and young adult books.

• April 2026 Board Book/Picture Book Releases PDF: https://bit.ly/41FKles

• April 2026 Middle Grade/Young Adult Releases PDF: https://bit.ly/4v3m8wf

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Maya, a young girl of Black and Jewish heritage, loves to tell her own stories. But when she has to tell a true story of her own family for class, Maya is unsure how to proceed. As she sits down for Shabbat dinner, her parents tell her about their own grandmothers — Martha, whose family leaves behind segregation in the southern United States, and Essie, who ventures from Romania to the United States due to pogroms. Years later, Martha and Essie’s grandchildren marry under the chuppah. That is when Maya is introduced back into the story, feeling confident now in her ability to tell this tale of her family’s history. With painted, lifelike, and vibrant illustrations and age-appropriate well-paced text, Maya’s Journey: A Story of Two Great Grandmothers crafts an engaging story of unity and hope, while managing to provide light context on the darker parts of US and European history.

Author Marcella White Campbell avoids being too on-the-nose with her text, never directly calling out Martha’s race and Essie’s religion. Instead she delicately describes segregation, Jim Crow cars, Purim, and a chuppah canopy over the bride and groom. This allows the illustrations to set the scene, with Black characters and Jewish representation such as Shabbat dinner, a shelved menorah, kippot, and a chuppah. Approaching the story so delicately allows for more flexible dialogue between caretaker and child, supplemented by detailed backmatter that contains information about racism, segregation, pogroms, the Holocaust, and more. The backmatter also contains biographical information on the two women who inspired this story, though it’s likely that Essie would have been the great-great grandmother in real life given her birth year of 1893.

In terms of Jewish representation, Maya’s Journey tells an immigration story that is likely familiar to many Ashkenazi Jews, whose families escaped pogroms or the Holocaust. However, the story is also a celebration of mixed heritage and blended families. The backmatter directly addresses that there are many ways to be a Jewish family and asks young readers how they would tell their own unique family’s story.

The backmatter’s acknowledgement of the diversity of Judaism makes it feel like this story will find a welcoming home within the Jewish community. Maya’s Journey is a mirror in which Jewish children of blended heritage can see themselves. This story could also be used as an introduction for white Jewish children and their families to discuss diversity within the Jewish community. Outside of the Jewish community, it has potential to serve as a bridge, drawing parallels between the historical experiences of Jewish and Black ancestors.

This book would be well-suited for classrooms and libraries, where the history and modern day application of this story are poignant and timely.

Reviewer Lauren Kasiarz is a children’s book author and human resources professional who celebrates diverse representation in Jewish kidlit on her Instagram page @diversejewishbooks. She’s been published in Kveller, is a #PBParty 2025 Finalist, and was selected to participate in the PJ Library Picture Book Summer Camp at the Highlights Foundation.

Why is this Substack different from all other Substacks?

The Jewish Book Garden, as far as we can tell, is the only Substack website and newsletter that focuses on Jewish children’s literature, with news, interviews, and book reviews (hey, that rhymes!).

We hope you’re enjoying our posts, and we would love to hear your feedback! Please leave us a comment or send us a message to let us know what we’re doing right and what else we can do to serve you better.

Happy Passover!

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“Let there be light.”

In the beginning, in the book of Genesis, these words from Hashem separate the void, and begin to illuminate what will become our world. Light is what makes life possible. White light is comprised of the colors of the rainbow, which God promised Noah was a sign that He would never destroy life on Earth again, after the Great Flood. Light, how it can separate though a prism of broken glass, and how broken glass can take on nearly sacred symbolic and even paradoxically positive meaning, is at the heart of Isler’s touching present-tense text inspired by her husband’s late grandmother.

A modern-day child is dining with her own great grandmother. She accidentally shatters a water goblet, and feels crushed. Great Grandmother reassures her, and points out three pieces of broken glass she has saved from different times in her life. One piece is from her wedding, from the wine glass stepped on under the chuppah. Another is from Kristallnacht, which was the impetus for her family to flee Germany. Another is from a goblet her mother shattered, which brought good luck to the family as refugees in England. Light shines through all of them; Stamper’s palette is in full use, and it turns to rainbows.

The great grandmother bestows a shard from the broken water goblet to the child, saying that it might be good luck for her. Wise perhaps too far beyond her years, the child reflects on what she has learned that night, and says that it already has brought her luck, as her family’s history has brought her to this moment. Stamper’s variance of black-and-white and color illustrations — sometimes in the same spread! — are perfect for the moving text, with shards and images of people from the past as a recurrent theme. It is impossible to finish this book without something of a lump in the throat.

The Jewish content for this book is part and parcel of the text, but in fact it is quite gentle. The great grandmother’s marriage, the destruction of synagogues during The Night of the Broken Glass in Germany, and the girl’s awareness that she has the chance to live without hiding who she is are all part of the twentieth and twenty-first century Jewish experience. Isler’s Afterword connects the text and art to her own family history and her responsibility as a modern Jewish writer. Stamper, I know for her own part, is a fierce advocate and ally for Jews the world over.

Reviewer Jeff Gottesfeld is a writer for stage, page, and screen. His most recent focus is picture books for children, including Honor Flight, Fight for the Right to Read, Twenty-One Steps, Food for Hope, and The Christmas Mitzvah, which was aa Sydney Taylor Award silver medalist). He has won awards from the American Library Association, the Association of Jewish Libraries, the Christophers, the National Council for the Social Studies, the American Alliance for Theater and Education, multiple Junior Library Guild Selections, the Audrey Geisel Friend of Military Children Award, and inclusion on numerous best-of lists including the Wall Street Journal, School Library Journal, the Chicago Public Library, NYPL, and others. Raised in Teaneck, New Jersey, he is based in Los Angeles, CA. Visit him at www.jeffgottesfeldwriter.com.

The Holiday Highlights committee of the Association of Jewish Libraries names the best new children’s books about Jewish holidays each spring and fall.

Below are Jewish Book Garden reviews for the two Passover titles named on the Spring 2026 Holiday Highlights list. Both are picture books, one taking place during the Exodus, the other set in contemporary Argentina.

Find the full Spring 2026 list HERE, with books for Shabbat, Purim, Passover, and Shavuot.

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The hugely talented Selina Alko, author and illustrator of gems such as I Is For Immigrant and Daddy Christmas & Hanukkah Mama, has created another beautiful picture book in Otherwise Known as Judy the Great: A Poetic Ode to Judy Blume. Through a collection of twenty-one well-crafted poems, Alko invites readers to learn about the childhood of the incomparable, illustrious Judy Blume. The illustrations are stunning throughout — they are interspersed with collage and some photographs, too, which give the pages a visually pleasing layered look.

Poetry as a medium serves the big, sometimes heavy themes of Judy’s childhood brilliantly. The poems, some short, some long, some rhyming, some not, enable the young reader to envision Judy’s early life clearly, through imagery, metaphor and lyricism. The poems offer readers a way of connecting with Judy and her story more intimately — a gift which is not easily found through a traditional narrative biographical structure. While other picture book biographies of Judy Blume exist, this is the only picture book poetry collection to tell Judy’s childhood story. There are, to be sure, lots of young Judy Blume readers who aren’t inclined to pick up non-fiction, and for them, this book offers an inroad — the reluctant non-fiction readers in our classrooms and homes might be thrilled to pick up a gorgeous poetry collection.

Judy Blume is known for writing truth and not censoring herself. For decades, kids have been connecting with Judy’s books because she doesn’t shy away from writing realism. In turn, Alko doesn’t censor the tough parts of Judy’s childhood. References to Judy’s upbringing as a secular Jew growing up in New Jersey and Florida run throughout the book, from Friday night dinner prepared by her mother, to Hanukkah, to World War II. The book also references sitting shiva. This myriad of Jewish-themed content only enhances the reader’s understanding of Judy and adds important context for today’s reader, whether Jewish or not. This book is a treasure, celebrating, as it does, one of America’s most important children’s book authors. Otherwise Known as Judy The Great: A Poetic Ode to Judy Blume belongs in every elementary school library.

Reviewer Amy Brook Cohen is a writer, teacher and children's librarian. Her essays and articles have been published widely on both sides of the Atlantic. Amy is currently at work on her first children's picture book. She lives in London, England, with her husband and two children.

Argentine author Ana María Shua has written over 100 books and is super famous in Latin America but The Passover Pet Surprise is her first Jewish children's book. As you'd expect from such an accomplished writer, it's a well told, heartwarming story with a hint of ambiguity, which works well during a holiday where we are commanded both to retell and to inquire!

Jewish Book Garden co-founder and podcast host Heidi Rabinowitz interviewed Shua on The Book of Life Podcast. Click below to listen to the interview or read a transcript.

The Book of Life Podcast: Jewish Kidlit

Podcast: The Passover Pet Surprise

The Passover Pet Surprise really did surprise me. This emotionally authentic story by Argentine author Ana María Shua ends ambiguously, challenging expectations in a way that feels like real life. It…

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24 days ago · Heidi Rabinowitz

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How do you Jew? Yes, I realize it's a play on "How do you do?" But I hesitated when I first heard the title, concerned it could be misconstrued as an anti-Semitic stereotype.

My worries vanished when I saw the cover and opened the book. I found it to be a wonderful celebration of the diversity of the Jewish people and their holiday traditions, shaped by the foods and customs where they live or where their families came from. It reinforces that, while there isn't just one way to be Jewish, Jews around the world share the ability to make "anywhere home."

Little ones will be mesmerized by the bold colors and fun, graphic illustrations. Adult readers will love learning about Jewish traditions around the world.

This book focuses on the diversity of Jewish customs, shaped by geographic location rather than by branches of Judaism — Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, or Reconstructionist. It introduces Jews and non-Jews to the many ways local foods and customs influence Jewish practices.

Reviewer Elizabeth Suneby is an award-winning author with several Jewish-themed books, including the recently released board books published by PJ Library--SAY SHALOM ALL DAY LONG and CHALAHBALOO -- both available from PJ Library and Amazon. Her latest books were inspired by her 2023 trip to Israel with the 3rd cohort of the PJ Library Author Israel Adventure.

The first first International Women's Day was held in 1911, and it continues to be celebrated each year on March 8. The first Women’s History Week was held in California in 1978, and in 1981 Congress declared it a nationwide celebration. Starting in 1987, the whole month of March is set aside each year to honor women’s contributions to American history. And of course, that includes Jewish women.

Picture book biographies are popular because they make history accessible and relatable. As we composed this post, we wanted to include biographies of diverse Jewish American women such as Jews of Color, non-Ashkenazi or queer or disabled Jews, and so on. The only example we could find was a book about disability rights activist Judith Heumann. We’d like to challenge authors and publishers to fill this gap and create more diverse Jewish biographies.

Here are a few recent picture book biographies of notable Jewish American women. Click on each to read its review on The Jewish Book Garden.

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The year is 1986. Thirteen year old Yasha Reznick is uprooted from his apartment in Brighton, New York, his best friends Slava and Zhenya, and all that is good about city-living, when his parents move to Rockwood, New Jersey in pursuit of their American Dream. Yasha’s introduction to the suburbs, as a first generation, city-dwelling, Russian-American, is disorienting and dejecting. To help him adjust, he is paired with Alex, the local realtor’s son—an arrangement that only heightens Yasha's pressure to fit in. Soon, he is swapping his gold chain for popped collars, changing his name to “Jake,” and hiding his Russian lunches in the school cafeteria. Missing old friends, navigating peer groups, and feeling conflicted about when and whether to live as one’s true self, are connections most middle school students can make to Yasha. Yet, school isn’t the only place that Yasha must establish new footing. While his relationship with his parents grows strained, Yasha finds an unlikely confidant in Bernie, a resident at the nursing home where Yasha’s mother works. What begins as a community service project for his Bar Mitzvah quickly blossoms into a genuine friendship fueled by a shared love for the New York Mets. Together they watch the Mets advance — with superb attention to detail; this book is a must for baseball fans. Readers will appreciate hard won, yet happy endings, for both Yasha and the Mets.

Author Margaret Gurevich aptly weaves multiple threads through Yasha’s Amazin’ Bar Mitzvah. Though not autobiographical, the story is infused with an authenticity drawn from the author’s own life. For readers of a certain age, the 1986 setting serves as a perfect "pin drop" in time. Gurevich introduces historical elements — the '“twinning” of Bar Mitzvahs with Soviet Jews, the censorship of letters with religious content sent to the USSR, and the legacy of Jewish persecution — as natural backstory. Scenes surrounding Yom Kippur, Yasha’s bar mitzvah, and his interactions with Bernie are warmly rendered, bolstered by the natural use of terms like Kaddish, siddur, and boychik. Gurevich succeeds in the often difficult task of capturing the middle grade voice of a first person narrator, alongside a perfectly realized 1980s atmosphere (take it from this reviewer; she lived it). The image of Keith Hernandez surveying Yasha’s new digs from his position as a poster on the wall was a laugh out loud moment.

As Yasha prepares his Torah portion, he recognizes his bar mitzvah—falling on the cusp of Simchat Torah—is a story of endings and beginnings. This book is a perfect gift for a Bar/Bat Mitzvah, or for any young person feeling uprooted or pressured to hide their true identity, whether familiar with Jewish customs or not. Even Yankees or Red Sox fans will find something to love here. In the spirit of the ‘86 Mets this book is “Amazin’!” Highly recommended purchase for libraries.

Reviewer Amy Blaine is an elementary school library, with over 25 years of experience in libraries. She is currently pursuing her Master's Degree in Jewish Studies at Gratz College.

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Jordanita and her family visit cousins in Argentina for Passover, delighting in spending time with the relatives and their many pets (2 perros, 1 gato, 1 tortuga pequena, 1 tortuga grande, and 2 loritos). Spanish vocabulary is woven naturally into the first person narrative, told from Jordanita's point of view. Text and illustrations portray a warm and loving family, happy to be gathered together and excited to participate in the Passover seder. Things take a dark turn, however, when Jordanita is inspired by the Festival of Freedom to release the parrots Tic and Toc from their cage. After the initial shock at the loss, Aunt Verónica forgives the error and the chastened child is cheered up by a family brainstorm about the parrots' future adventures.

The painted illustrations are vibrant, full of movement and bright candy colors. They are very detailed, and invite close examination. Each character is infused with personality, and their wild hair seems to have a life of its own. The body language shows a family thrilled to be together and pets ready to have fun. They remain casually dressed for the celebration; bearded Uncle Ariel wears a kippah during the seder and Cousin Ilán wears a hat, but Papá and Benja remain bareheaded (granted, it would be difficult to balance a kippah atop Papá's Jewfro).

It is rare that we see the Argentine Jewish experience, and this book deliciously fills that gap. The family drinks maté tea, makes knéidalaj, grills a roast on the parilla (barbeque), and has their seder outside in the warm fall weather of April. Uncle Ariel reassures Jordanita “There are parrots all over in Mendoza. Tic and Toc should do just fine," and we see other parrots in the subtropical trees.

While the ending is ambiguous (we never learn the fate of Tic and Toc), the story makes a good springboard for discussions of Jewish views on freedom and forgiveness.

This emotionally authentic, lushly illustrated Passover story is highly recommended for all children's collections. It was simultaneously published in Spanish as La gran sorpresa de Pésaj. This title was named to the Association of Jewish Libraries' Spring 2026 Holiday Highlights list.

Reviewer Heidi Rabinowitz is co-founder of The Jewish Book Garden. She hosts The Book of Life Podcast: A Show About Jewish Kidlit at bookoflifepodcast.substack.com. Heidi is Past President of the Association of Jewish Libraries, and Library Director at Congregation B’nai Israel of Boca Raton, Florida.

Childhood photos + what you do now = the #ThisIsWho trend currently sweeping social media. It’s hard to resist that blend of fun nostalgia and professional pride, so Susan and Heidi dug up some old photos — both with missing teeth!

The trend is very appropriate for those of us who treasure children’s literature. We never stopped reading kids’ books, incorporating them into our careers as we grew up. And while we lived in a bit of a Jewish literature desert in the latter half of the 20th century, we do have fond memories of a few significant books that we read around the time these photos were taken: Heidi loved The Rabbi and the Twenty-Nine Witches by Marilyn Hirsh (1976) for its puzzle-solving and magic, while Susan loved The Magician by I.L. Peretz, adapted by Uri Shulevitz (1973) and was so captivated by it that she created her own adaptation, The Passover Guest, many years later. Susan remembers reading the few Jewish books she had to ragged shreds, and her younger self would have been absolutely amazed by all the Jewish children’s books being published now.

Today, with over 100 Jewish kids’ books published each year, our inner children are jumping up and down! If these books get you excited too, please read The Jewish Book Garden’s reviews, check out our linked Resources, and listen to Heidi’s Book of Life Podcast.

Have you posted your own #ThisIsWho photos on social media? If so, please drop a link in the comments!

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When Ethan and his parents set the table for their Passover seder for only four participants, Ethan worries that the seder will not be the happy, noisy holiday he thinks it should be. His mother tells him, “The Haggadah says, Let all who are hungry come and eat,’” adding that maybe there will be some unexpected guests. Ethan needn’t have worried. As he and his parents begin each part of the seder, they hear knocking at their door. Each knock reveals more of their large, diverse, multiethnic, multicultural, multi-species group of relatives, friends, and talking animal guests arriving to join their seder—bringing joy and food from their own traditions. The illustrations, created digitally in Photoshop, help to demonstrate each part of the seder. Their pastel tones add a sense of calm normalcy to the zany mayhem of so many unplanned human and animal visitors.

Ethan's family follows the traditional order and customs of the seder celebrated widely throughout the Jewish community. Some of the illustrations and aspects of the narrative may not appeal to Orthodox readers, such as the mention of the long drive the grandparents took to get there. The back matter contains a summary of the holiday for the uninitiated, and adds a recipe for traditional charoset, with many non-traditional add-ins. Though the Passover seder is a uniquely Jewish celebration, and the mitzvah of welcoming guests is an important Jewish value, non-Jewish audiences can also relate to this mitzvah, while learning more about the seder traditions.

Reviewer Dena Bach has an MA/MFA in Children’s Literature and Writing for Children from Simmons University and studied illustration at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. She has worked as a bookseller, bookkeeper, aspiring book writer, fine artist, calligrapher, illustrator, and a teacher of children from ages two to fourteen. She currently spends her time working at a children’s bookstore, learning sofrut, and as illustration editor for the Jewish Book Garden.