Three Stories for Young Children from PJ Library

PJ Library has released three story books for young children.  A board book, My Hands Make the World by Amalia Hoffman, expresses the idea that there is Godliness in all of us.  It allows a child aged 6 months or older to imagine that he or she created the world with her or his very own hands.  Following the text of Bereshit, the book pictures a child’s hand first making darkness, then light; and subsequently making sky, clouds, and water on the second day; trees and flowers on the third; the moon and sun on the fourth; birds and fish on the fifth; other animals and humans on the sixth, and finally resting on the seventh day.

Jennifer Wolf Kam wrote and Sally Walker illustrated Until the Blueberries Grow about a young boy named Ben who successfully delays his grandfather for a year from selling his home and moving to a retirement community (hopefully like our Seacrest Village in Encinitas).  During the year of delay, Ben and his zayde have many adventures such as picking and eating blueberries together; eating jelly sandwiches in the sukkah; drinking hot chocolate by the light of the chanukiah; and secreting and finding afikomen outside in the lilac bushes.  But after the year delay, zayde tells Ben he just doesn’t want to keep climbing the stairs to his second-floor bedroom.  So, he moves to a retirement community, and when Ben visits him there, he brings a gift.  Blueberries!

The third story, ItCould Always Be Worse,  retold by Margot Zemach, is a classic tale about the man who lives with his large, loud family in a small hut.  He tells his rabbi that the noise and having everyone on top of each other is making him crazy.  The rabbi recommends that he take his birds—chickens, a rooster, and a goose—into the hut to live with them.  He does, and those fowl make matters only worse.  So, he goes back to the rabbi and complains again, and each time he complains, the rabbi recommends he take another animal into his hut, first a goat, and then a cow.  At last, the man can stand it no longer.  “It’s worse than a nightmare!” he tells the rabbi.  So, the rabbi tells him to let all the animals out of his hut.   He does so and reports back to the rabbi, “With just my family in the hut, it’s so quiet, so roomy, so peaceful … What a pleasure!”

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Donald H. Harrison is editor emeritus of San Diego Jewish World.  He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com