Customer Reviews

What the Moon Brought

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The 17 stories in this 1968 book feature Ruth and Debbie --- two sisters who were not quite twins, and both had pointy chins, from always looking up at the moon.

Once a month, their mother let them stay up to look at the new moon that was like a silver cradle. Sometimes it sailed out of a cloud, rose from behind tall buildings or peeked from behind the branches of a tree. And once it rose out of the sea.

But wherever the new moon came from, it brought the Jewish holidays, and the sisters greeted it with "Shalom aleichem!" (Peace welcome!)

The book's beginning and its end, unfortunately, are much brighter than the middle.

There are certainly some other highlights in these Jewish stories, but as a whole, they have not aged well. In the third, for example, the main character is Dvorah Bee, who lived in a hive with her aunts and cousins and wanted to make honey. She flies out and meets a sick flower. The dialogue is as saccharin as the concept. Devorah alighted on a pink petunia. "Good morning, Flower," she said. "Good morning Bee."

And so on. The whole point of this ridiculousness is to make honey for Debbie and Ruthie's Rosh Hashonah. Oy.

In the fourth more realistic tale, albeit still somewhat dated, Ruth and Debbie argued and, in the spirit of Yom Kippur, made up.

For Sukkot, Ruthie and Debbie meet some new friends and invite them to build a Sukkah and join them there fore a meal. There's a story for Simchat Torah, four for Shabbat, one for Hanukkah, one for Tu'BeShevat (birthday of the trees), one for Purim, two for Pessach, two for Lag Ba'Omer and (including one about Rabbi Simon bar Yochai, who lived in ancient Israel) and one for Shavuot.

But while these stories all convey central Jewish ideas, they are dated and not nearly as compelling as Weilerstein's better-known K'tonton tales.

If you had these stories as a child, perhaps you will appreciate them. Otherwise, they're camp. I recommend K'tonton instead.

--- Alyssa A. Lappen

An 8 year-old boy with no sisters, I never did figure out how this book found its way to my parents' bookshelf, but I did know that I didn't want to read it. I was searching for books about boys like myself, not tales about girls. Still, I had a sense that there was lots in =What the Moon Brought= that I wouldn't ever be able to understand, and so I respected and feared the book in ways I couldn't then explain. However, I did enjoy the illustrations, and the portrayals of close relationships the two girls had with each other as well as with their mother.
The unconscious symbolism of the moon as something particularly relevant and precious to the minds and bodies of women simply enhanced my regard for the book as something mysterious and,perhaps, forbidden for a manchild like myself.
As my wife and I haven't had any daughters, I hadn't the chance to revisit the tales when raising my own family; yet--a half-century later--I still have a sense of wonder about some powerful and magical force residing in =What the Moon Brought=, a force that continues to totally eclipse whatever cynicism I may hold for "dated" books, as another reviewer has described this one.