4/17/2022 Holiday Books Round Up: Easter & Passover
- Sasha Wallace
- Apr 17, 2022
- 8 min read
Spring has sprung, if the pollen crusting up my car windows is any indication. School is almost over, it isn’t an oven yet outside, & garage sales pepper the streets as neighbors do deep-cleans to welcome the season. This is the time of blossoms & harvests, of confections & feasts. This is the time of family coming together & laughter ringing out, marked by Easter egg hunts & Passover seders. This week’s book selection seeks to honor both traditions.
EASTER
Picture Book 1
Title: Max’s Chocolate Chicken
Author & Illustrator: Rosemary Wells
Recommended for: Grades K-1
Basic plot: Max & his sister, Ruby, find a decadent chocolate chicken in the birdbath. They begin racing to find the most eggs & claim their prize. Two things become immediately clear – Max is hopeless at searching & Ruby is effortlessly bossy. An unexpected twist puts Ruby in her place.
Why I love it: First, I absolutely love the irony of Max & Ruby being rabbits. Wells takes the conventional Easter mascot & embraces that trope in a fresh way. Who doesn’t love a soft, velvety bunny? In college, my friends Cody & Nick adopted a rabbit named Angie. She was the darling of the dormitory. We all loved stroking her & watching her massacre her meals.
Even growing up, my neighbors bought two big speckled rabbits who were always escaping their enclosures & gamboling around the subdivision. One of them had a black spot around his eye that looked like a pirate’s patch. Whether I’m visiting my father in Winter Springs & seeing a wild hare dash into his raspberry bushes, or watching students care for the class pets in the Agriculture classroom, rabbits have cemented themselves in our psyches as tame, lovable & adorable. It’s those reasons alone that make us forgive their bathroom tendencies.
I’m biased, though – Rosemary Wells is the beloved author of Yoko, one of my absolute favorite children’s books – so I’m hard-pressed not to like anything she touches. Her illustrations are instantly recognizable, as she always outlines her characters with thick black lines & gives them soulful or mischievous eyes. Even the blades of grass are pleasingly striated & dotted with random globs of color to break up the interminable greenness.
The endpapers in the front feature a Willy Wonka-looking brown rabbit gliding diagonally across the sky, dropping eggs & chocolate birds into the grass. He is wearing a magnificent green & yellow paisley cape/robe, with a pink & purple polka dot vest, & he just makes me smile.
Beyond aesthetics, the story itself is easy to relate to. Many kids can identify with having a sibling tell them what to do, or putting them down when they struggle, however well-intentioned. So, I appreciated Max’s sly revenge & Ruby’s complete meltdown as a result. Any time I got too smug with my own family, I guarantee one of my older brothers checked me. This really is cuteness overload.
Where can you find it? Amazon, eBay, AbeBooks, Thriftbooks, OverDrive (cheapest $0.99 & up, used).
Extension activity: I would have your kiddo research how rabbits became affiliated with Easter, since I guarantee there isn’t a record of them in the actual scripture.
Taken from TIME Magazine: “According to some sources, the Easter bunny first arrived in America in the 1700s with German immigrants who settled in Pennsylvania and transported their tradition of an egg-laying hare called “Osterhase” or “Oschter Haws.” Their children made nests in which this creature could lay its colored eggs. Eventually, the custom spread across the U.S. and the fabled rabbit’s Easter morning deliveries expanded to include chocolate and other types of candy and gifts, while decorated baskets replaced nests. Additionally, children often left out carrots for the bunny in case he got hungry from all his hopping.”
Beyond that, obviously you must host your own glorious egg escapade. Have your child decorate eggs with you, then hide them in strategic places to allow for the scavenger hunt. If you want to reward the winner with a chocolate chicken, hats off to you!
Picture Book 2
Title: Rechenka’s Eggs
Author & Illustrator: Patricia Polacco
Recommended for: Grades 1-3
Basic plot: Old Babushka is getting her signature painted eggs dolled up for the Easter Festival in Moskva. But when she takes in an injured goose, she gets some major help in an unexpected way.
Why I love it: Before Etsy, there was this – little cottage industries where men & women toiled & tarried at their craft & presented their creations at fairs, festivals, flea markets & greengrocers. I love how tenacious & determined Babushka is, contrasted to how gentle & nurturing she is to Rechenka. I love the steepled domes of the city & the caribou-crunched snow of the countryside. I love the swirling patterns & figure-8s on the eggs & the way it feels like an old retelling of The Goose with the Gold Egg, but with a better ending. I love how the author introduces you to new phrases & words like kulich & pashka. The theme here is friendship, specifically one hatched from a miracle. It leaves you warm & fuzzy inside.
Where can you find it? Amazon, eBay, AbeBooks, Thriftbooks, OverDrive (cheapest $3.55 & up, used). If you have Audible, the Audiobook is free.
Extension activity: I love this website! It gives insights into how to make tissue-paper sun-catchers, bake delicious eggy bread, & create colorful spires out of painted lids.
PASSOVER
Picture Book 3
Title: It’s Passover, Grover!
Author: Jodie Shepherd
Illustrator: Joe Mathieu
Recommended for: Grades K-1
Basic plot: When he isn’t begging you not to turn the page (think: The Monster at the End of This Book), Grover likes to invite his friends to his family’s Passover seder & explain everything of significance to them. From matzah to grape juice, afikomen-searching to Haggadah reading, this book will make any Jewish kid light up & say, “Hey! I recognize that!”
Why I love it: It is so simple, it’s the next best thing to Rugrats: Passover when it comes to what the holiday is all about. It is absolutely wonderful to have representation like this from such a popular children’s platform.
I love how Grover invites his non-Jewish friends, I love how supportive & curious they are about experiencing this important dinner, & I love that nowhere in the book do they have to endure the absolute stain on cereal that is Crispy-O’s (if you know, you know). It was so hard growing up & not being allowed to share my friend’s Easter candy because it wasn’t kosher for Pesach. This book is a balm for that.
Where can you find it? Amazon, eBay, AbeBooks, Thriftbooks, OverDrive (cheapest $2.58 & up, used). You can also watch this online in episode form as part of the Shalom Sesame initiative.
Extension activity: I challenge you to attend a seder! If you do not know anyone Jewish, you can try to host your own. Create your seder plate, order a Haggadah online (I recommend the one below), & don’t worry if your matzah tastes like a saltless cracker.
Here's the Amazon link if you want to look inside the book:
Chapter Book 1
Title: The Devil’s Arithmetic
Author: Jane Yolen
Recommended for: Grades 6-8
Basic plot: Hannah Stern is a young Jewish girl living in New York. She’s very disconnected from her religion & this manifests in her sour & sullen attitude during the family’s Passover seder. When Hannah opens the door to let Elijah the Prophet inside, she is transported back in time to Poland in the year 1941. As she works to make sense of her new surroundings, she realizes the Holocaust is in full swing & she’s being transported to a concentration camp. Worse, she’s the only one who knows what awaits her there.
Why I love it: This book is gutting. The premise itself is the stuff of nightmares. I once thought Yolen was sadistic for subjecting her protagonist to such unspeakable horrors, but as an almost thirty-year-old woman, I know now it was bravery that compelled her to write this. When she debuted it to schoolchildren in Indianapolis, one student famously asked her if the tribulations within were made up. They couldn’t comprehend that the Holocaust was real. That in itself demonstrates the importance of telling these difficult stories. We must stand by the motto “Never again”. We must bare the darkness of the past to ensure the brightness of the future.
During the Passover seder, there’s a section in the Haggadah where we read the four questions (ma nishtanah). The wicked child asks why the service is even celebrated, making it known they personally exclude themselves from participating in the rituals. According to the Haggadah, one must sternly remind such a child that the Lord saved their ancestors from bondage in Egypt & they must see themselves as personally benefitting from such a feat.
The wicked child is supposed to believe in that love & favor, even if they don’t seem to see evidence of it. This book really embodies that exchange. Hannah is the poster wicked child, with a total disdain for her culture. She is given an almost Ebenezer Scrooge-like parallel reality to endure until her lesson has been learned. By the end of the book, she not only feels that kinship with her people, but she also feels compelled to protect & defend them, to be part of something bigger than herself. It would be beautiful if it weren’t so painful.
I remember reading it in 6th grade & bawling my eyes out. One of my best friends was a man named Lee Finkelstein, who was a survivor of 3 concentration camps (including Auschwitz) & witnessed his entire family being slaughtered while he was imprisoned. The specter of his experiences there hung over me with each word. When he passed away, I begged the USC Shoah Foundation (an archive of survivor testimony set up by Steven Spielberg) to send me Lee’s taped interview, which I still have to this day. I couldn’t fathom such unmitigated cruelty, or the men & women inured to it. It was just as hard to look at Lee’s numeric tattoo as it was to see his eyes water behind his pink-tinted sunglasses.
Not only was this book my first encounter with the Holocaust, but it was also my first encounter with a Jewish character in literature who looked, thought & acted like me. I saw myself in this cover:
Where can you find it? Amazon, eBay, AbeBooks, Thriftbooks, OverDrive (cheapest $1.06 & up, used). It would likely be at local retailers like Barnes & Noble. If you have Audible, the Audiobook is free.
Extension activity: Not to toot my own horn, but I created a resource I’m quite proud of & all proceeds go to the Jewish Community Center in Maitland. I use a timeless video & a piece of chocolate to teach the Holocaust to young audiences.
I highly recommend going beyond the usual school curriculum of Anne Frank & the Butterfly Project & going to a Holocaust museum or memorial to learn more information in a curated setting. Even the book Refugee by Alan Gratz is a great start, one my 6th graders were mesmerized by. It is never easy or fun to teach this content & as the custodian of your child’s literary journey, only you can decide when & how to tackle this. It is my belief that, in order to prevent history from repeating itself, we must face the harsh realities & indignities of the past. The Devil’s Arithmetic is a breathtaking novel & I firmly believe it deserves your time.
Thanks for tuning in! Keep the pages turning until we meet again.
Love,
Sash
Comments