Three young chil­dren whose fam­i­lies belong to the same syn­a­gogue share their per­son­al under­stand­ing of what Shab­bat is. The illus­tra­tions and mod­ern lan­guage reveal an inclu­sive expe­ri­ence by diverse Jews of sev­er­al races and gen­ders com­ing togeth­er to cel­e­brate their trea­sured week­ly hol­i­day. Read­ers must care­ful­ly fol­low the pic­tures to catch the switch between nar­ra­tors as the char­ac­ters go from reg­u­lar ser­vices to a b’nai mitz­vah to com­mu­ni­ty activ­i­ty to din­ner tables at home. In a two-page spread, the three dif­fer­ent fam­i­ly Shab­bat tables are joined in one illus­tra­tion seen from a bird’s‑eye view.

Despite hav­ing dif­fer­ent fam­i­ly tra­di­tions, all of the char­ac­ters reveal joy­ful con­nec­tions to Judaism. Dif­fer­ent fam­i­lies cel­e­brat­ing in dif­fer­ent ways move chrono­log­i­cal­ly from Fri­day night to Sat­ur­day after­noon. The book ends before Sat­ur­day sun­down; there is no Hav­dalah. The end of the book pro­vides two glos­saries: one for Hebrew words in the sto­ry and the second

for Hebrew words about Shab­bat not in the sto­ry, but good for young read­ers to know. The mes­sage that Shab­bat is mean­ing­ful in all the var­i­ous ways to embrace it comes across clear­ly from the three hap­py chil­dren. The active and appeal­ing illus­tra­tions do the heavy lift­ing of sep­a­rat­ing the three fam­i­ly nar­ra­tives while they deliv­er one cohe­sive mes­sage in a charming

con­tem­pla­tion of Shabbat.