Chil­dren’s

Sadie’s Sukkah Breakfast

Jamie Korn­gold; Julie Forten­ber­ry, illus.
  • Review
By – November 7, 2011
Charm­ing and focused, this fresh hol­i­day tale brings delight and infor­ma­tion by show­ing young chil­dren in the sukkah in the morn­ing when it is day­light; fears of the dark do not enter the sto­ry. Already, you have to smile. Two tots, old­er sis­ter, Sadie, and younger broth­er, Ori, are very excit­ed about Sukkot. They can­not wait to use the sukkah dec­o­rat­ed with their cre­ations, made at Sun­day school (neat plug). Ris­ing super ear­ly, they come up with the idea to eat break­fast in the booth on their own. Hav­ing achieved the task, Sadie remem­bers Dad­dy explain­ing the mitz­vah of invit­ing guests to eat in the sukkah with them but the hour is too ear­ly for the real peo­ple they know. Sadie saves the day with her great idea of invit­ing spe­cial friends, their stuffed ani­mals. It’s a deli­cious hap­py-to-teary end­ing as the chil­dren and toy guests enjoy the sukkah togeth­er. Illus­tra­tions and page lay­out add to the mes­sage with love­ly warmth. The paint­ings depict the children’s per­son­al­i­ties, sup­port­ing the text and under­lin­ing the inno­cence. The scenes of find­ing food and uten­sils and then port­ing them to the back yard burst with ener­gy and deter­mi­na­tion. High­ly rec­om­mend­ed for read­ers aged 4 – 6.

Ellen G. Cole, a retired librar­i­an of the Levine Library of Tem­ple Isa­iah in Los Ange­les, is a past judge of the Syd­ney Tay­lor Book Awards and a past chair­per­son of that com­mit­tee. She is a co-author of the AJL guide, Excel­lence in Jew­ish Children’s Lit­er­a­ture. Ellen is the recip­i­ent of two major awards for con­tri­bu­tion to Juda­ic Librar­i­an­ship, the Fan­ny Gold­stein Mer­it Award from the Asso­ci­a­tion of Jew­ish Libraries and the Dorothy Schroed­er Award from the Asso­ci­a­tion of Jew­ish Libraries of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia. She is on the board of AJLSC.

Discussion Questions