Chil­dren’s

Noah’s Swim-a-Thon

  • Review
By – November 7, 2011
Noah loves camp. He loves kick­ball, he loves singing Shab­bat songs, he loves arts and crafts, but he does not like the pool. The water makes his arms get goose bumpy, his eyes feel stingy and his nose feels stuffy. The life­guard tries to get Noah in the water by offer­ing stick­ers but to no avail. Then, Mrs. Rubin, the camp direc­tor, tells the campers that they can get prizes for enter­ing the Swim-a-Thon but Noah says he doesn’t care about prizes; he still doesn’t want to swim. Mrs. Rubin says that there are many chil­dren who can’t afford to come to camp and, by swim­ming in the Swim-a-Thon, he can help send some of these kids to camp with the camp’s tzedakah fund. Noah gets pledges from friends and rel­a­tives to give mon­ey for every lap Noah swims which will go toward the tzedakah fund. Noah prac­tices swim­ming in the pool and swims a lap in the Swim-a-Thon, earn­ing $25 for the tzedakah fund. Swim-a-Thon is a reg­is­tered trade name owned by USA Swim­ming and was used by per­mis­sion. Make-a-Splash is a nation­al child-focused ini­tia­tive cre­at­ed by the USA Swim­ming Foun­da­tion, with the goal of teach­ing every child in Amer­i­ca to swim. Ann Koffsky’s full-page acrylic illus­tra­tions cheer­ful­ly teach tzedakah and per­se­ver­ance. Rec­om­mend­ed for ages 6 – 8.

Read­ing Guide


Bar­bara Sil­ver­man had an M.L.S. from Texas Woman’s Uni­ver­si­ty. She worked as a children’s librar­i­an at the Cor­pus Christi Pub­lic Libraries and at the Cor­pus Christi ISD before retir­ing. She worked as a vol­un­teer at the Astor Juda­ic Library of the Lawrence Fam­i­ly JCC in La Jol­la, CA. Sad­ly, Bar­bara passed away is 2012.

Discussion Questions