Chil­dren’s

The Gob­lins of Knottingham

Zoe Klein; Beth Bogert, illus.
  • Review
By – May 26, 2017

A sil­ly and appeal­ing pic­ture book, this is the sto­ry of a class­room filled with chil­dren who are plagued dai­ly by three gob­lins who love to tan­gle their hair. Final­ly one day they come up with a way to out­wit the gob­lins and their solu­tion leads to the inven­tion” of chal­lah. Full of fun­ny names and allit­er­a­tive text, this would work well as a read-aloud. The full-page illus­tra­tions, whim­si­cal­ly cre­at­ed in water-col­or pas­tel shades in a style char­ac­ter­is­tic of the artist’s work in High­lights for Chil­dren, have lots of sub­tle, amus­ing ele­ments for chil­dren to dis­cov­er when they look at the book on their own. At the end of this bread-cen­tered sto­ry, a let­ter to the chil­dren is includ­ed by the author, Rab­bi Zoe”, in which she invites them to think about what gives chal­lah its pow­er” pro­vid­ing some food for thought” about the beau­ty of Shabbat.

Rec­om­mend­ed for ages 4 – 7.

Mindy Langer is a retired pedi­a­tri­cian and grand­moth­er of two. She vol­un­teers in numer­ous capac­i­ties for her syn­a­gogue and is vol­un­teer read­er of med­ical texts for Learn­ing Ally, a ser­vice that pro­vides record­ed books for stu­dents with print dis­abil­i­ties. She sings in a large com­mu­ni­ty choir and is an avid quil­ter. In choos­ing books for chil­dren she most enjoys those that are both chal­leng­ing and fun for the chil­dren as well as enter­tain­ing for the adults read­ing to them.

Discussion Questions