Chil­dren’s

Rise and Shine: A Chal­lah-Day Tale

Karen Ostrove; Kim­ber­ly Scott, illus.
  • Review
By – September 12, 2013
Sam­my and Sophie are rum­mag­ing around their attic and find a crum­pled piece of paper. They try to make sense of it, but don’t even rec­og­nize the let­ters. When they take it to their Grand­ma Gert, who lives at the Shalom House, Grand­ma and her friends help deci­pher the Yid­dish text. It is a recipe for chal­lah passed down for gen­er­a­tions. Togeth­er with the res­i­dents, Sam­my and Sophie bake chal­lah using the recipe and decide to make this activ­i­ty a reg­u­lar occur­rence. The imag­i­na­tive and col­or­ful illus­tra­tions add to the whim­si­cal nature of the sto­ry. By the end of the book, the grumpy-faced uncle has the biggest smile of all and is the one who encour­ages con­tin­u­ing this tra­di­tion. Kim­ber­ly Scott has bril­liant­ly illus­trat­ed this evo­lu­tion along with show­ing the sweet nature of Grand­ma Gert. At the end of the tale the author pro­vides a recipe, in Eng­lish, for mak­ing chal­lah. This is a won­der­ful way to encour­age read­ers to con­tin­ue the tra­di­tion in their own homes. Rec­om­mend­ed for ages 3 – 8
Dro­ra Arussy, Ed.D., is an edu­ca­tion­al con­sul­tant who spe­cial­izes in inte­grat­ing Jew­ish and sec­u­lar stud­ies, the arts into edu­ca­tion, and cre­ative teach­ing for excel­lence in Jew­ish edu­ca­tion. She is the moth­er to four school-age chil­dren and has taught from pre-school through adult. Dro­ra is an adjunct pro­fes­sor of Hebrew lan­guage at Drew University.

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