Chil­dren’s

Passover Around the World

Tami Lehman-Wilzig; Eliz­a­beth Wolf, illus.
  • Review
By – February 13, 2012
An easy-to-read book whose text is added to by love­ly maps and col­or illus­tra­tions, many of them full-page, Passover Around the World intro­duces us to cus­toms of Passover obser­vance in coun­tries such as Turkey, Ethiopia, India, Iran, Moroc­co, Gibral­tar, the Unit­ed States, and Israel. The back­ground and his­to­ry of the obser­vances — includ­ing details about the Seder — make this both a per­fect intro­duc­tion to the hol­i­day and enrich­ment for those who are already famil­iar with our obser­vance in the Unit­ed States. Vignettes per­son­al­ize the obser­vance in a spe­cial way, such as a descrip­tion by the author of the actions of three Iran­ian men whom her father took home for Seder one year. Each sec­tion has infor­ma­tion about Jew­ish life in that par­tic­u­lar coun­try in a brown area sur­round­ed by a bor­der, which is both help­ful and inter­est­ing. Fol­low­ing the text, the author has added a Passover pot­pour­ri of var­i­ous cus­toms, recipes, and a glos­sary. This 48- page book could be called a pic­ture book, but is clear­ly aimed at read­ers old­er than those to whom pic­ture books are usu­al­ly pre­sent­ed. Rec­om­mend­ed for read­ers from ages 9 – 12, this can also be a read-to for younger chil­dren, par­tic­u­lar­ly since the author has includ­ed love­ly fic­tion­al­ized sto­ries about each coun­try.

Read­ing Guide

Shelly Feit has an M.L.S. and a Sixth-year Spe­cial­ist’s Cer­tifi­cate in infor­ma­tion sci­ence. She is the library direc­tor and media spe­cial­ist at the Mori­ah School in Engle­wood, NJ.

Discussion Questions