Customer Reviews

My First Passover Board Book (My 1st Board Books)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This a sturdy board book illustrated with colorful photos. It contains a lot of text, and some of the vocabulary words, such as "sacrifice" and "slavery," are too difficult for the babies and toddlers who are the usual board book audience. The main problem with this format is that much of the information here would be better suited for a kindergarten-age child, who would be unlikely to find a board book appealing. The back cover says besides helping children develop their vocabulary, this will help them "develop their early reading skills," which is not the usual purpose of a board book. The color photos of children show a boy dressed as Pharaoh and a girl who is supposed to be Moses' mother placing a doll representing Moses in water, as well as children dressed as soldiers and slaves. Each plague is pictured in color, and they are worded in language young children can understand, such as "sick cows" for plague 5 and "scary darkness" for plague 9. Pictures of items showing "Passover colors," such as "brown nuts," blue yarmulke," and "white candle" seem meant for very young children, while the language and musical notation teaching the four questions, the meaning and origin of the Passover holiday, as well as pictures and description of the foods eaten on Passover and those on the Seder plate, seem to be written for older children.
The editors have tried to incorporate too much into this board book, making it unsuitable for its intended audience. Board books What I Like about Passover by Varda Livney (Little, Simon, 2002) and Tomie dePaola's My First Passover (Putnam, 1991) are some better choices for introducing Passover to very young children.
Ages preschool and younger.
Reviewed by Andrea Davidson

We are big fans of DK Publishing. This book is thorough, just like the Hanukkah one, and the Shabbat one.. and all the educational books that DK publishes. This is the one Passover book that I have found that covers the chometz, search for chometz, seder, seder plate and other ceremonial items...and the story of Exodus ALL IN ONE BOOK. It even has the music and words for Mah Nishtana. There are Real Life pictures - photos of actual objects, and real kids acting out the Exodus story. We have a couple of other Passover books, but they omit something important, as if they couldn't figure out how to integrate it into one book. If you only get one Passover book, this DK Publishing one is the one to get.

Be sure to snap up the other two books in this "set" if you're considering buying this one. I'll start with major kudos to Dorling-Kindersley Publishers for offering this high-quality Passover board book, along with a Shabbat and Chanukah book, in their "my first" board books series.

(as I've said before, I am always slightly annoyed at the inclusion of Chanukah to the EXclusion of the many more important Jewish occasions throughout the year - let's be honest: it USUALLY only gets noticed because it takes place in December's "holiday season" - that's why I love this little threesome so much)

So what's in this book?

Everything a kid needs to know about Pesach: the story, symbols (seder plate), even a song (Mah Nishtana), in an extremely durable board book format (ours is three years old and still shows few signs of wear & tear).

As I said in my review of the Chanukah book, I ad-lib a bit with the text, bringing it down to the level and understanding of the child I'm reading it to, and also using words that would be more familiar (we say Pesach in our family, not Passover - and other terms are Ashkenazi Hebrew instead of English or Sefardi).

But as a springboard for discussion, and for its outstanding high-quality photos, it's terrific.

As with the Chanukah book, I worried at first that children might find the depiction of the "Exodus" scenes a little confusing since all the "actors" in the scenes are children, but in almost three years of reading this book, nobody has ever wondered why Pharoah or Moses is just a little kid, so I guess I'm the only mixed-up one here. :-))

A previous reviewer mentioned that the book is a little uneven in its reading level - some of the material (shapes, colours) seems geared towards toddlers, while others (musical notation and parts of the story) seem to address much older readers.

I actually find this a PLUS - there's something interesting in this book for all the readers and those who are "read to" in our family. And even the youngest kids easily learn to pause when we get to the "music-notes page" so we can practice Mah Nishtana (or Maoz Tzur in the Chanukah book -and I wish the Shabbat one included music, too).

With its more or less universal and non-denominational exploration of the holiday, this book - along with its Shabbat and Chanukah companions - is a terrific, high-quality addition to any Jewish family's bookshelf.

***** I've actually rated this book FIVE stars, instead of the four I gave the Chanukah book, because there are SOooo many decent Chanukah books out there, and such a scarcity of wonderful Pesach books. I hope more publishers take a hint from DK and start putting out "mini-series" of Jewish holiday books, instead of just focusing on the flashy December season.

I usually really like board books for my 2's class but I was a bit disapointed with this one. Whomever put this book together didn't understand how to be delicate about death and the horror that goes along with the Passover story for small children. I had to edit this book on the fly when reading it. The pictures and durability make it ok to leave out for the kids to peruse on their own, but I wouldn't repurchase this book.

All the "My First Broad Books" that I have purchased for my child have been a great learning experience for him.

I like this book. Its a hard book the kids love to hold and talk about the holiday.The class like to hold the books we read in class and when they hold the book they like to share with each other what we learned in class.