The author of Ike and Mama and the Once-a-Year Suit adopts a child's voice for this sweet if sometimes cloying picture book. A girl describes going to a Reform synagogue with her grandmother for Friday night services. As she follows the ceremonies, she--realistically--takes an equal interest in her surroundings ("Grandma likes the seats with cushions. I like the slippery chairs") and in her neighbors ("I play with a baby who's hanging over his mommy's shoulder"). She punctuates her observations with flashbacks to her day with Grandma: she has gone ice-skating in Rockefeller Center, to the art class Grandma teaches, to the carousel in the park. This cross-cutting technique can be confusing, and Glick's warm and fuzzy illustrations don't help: Grandma makes a few too many costume changes, wearing several different ensembles in the single afternoon. Authentic as parts of the narration seem, other passages are forced or precious: "I watch the Sabbath candles flicker. The flames dance with joy"; "I love going to temple with Grandma. It's sweeter than cookies." Ages 3-8.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
PreSchool-Grade 2-A little girl and her grandmother spend a day at the park, ice-skating in the morning and riding on the carousel in the afternoon. They then go to temple-where the universal aspects of the Reform service are shown-for the start of the Sabbath. Inquiring several times about the cookies she has been promised, the child listens and relates the service to the day's activities. Restless, she squirms, plays with her grandmother's jewelry, and falls asleep, awakening as the Oneg Shabbat, with the requisite refreshments, concludes the service. The child finally has her cookies, but decides that going to service with her grandmother is even sweeter than they are. Snyder's portrayal of a young child's behavior at temple and the pleasure of the intergenerational relationship is on target, and the story is well paced. Glick's pastel watercolors are adequate, but lack the verve of Amy Schwartz's synagogue scenes in Fancy Aunt Jess (Morrow, 1990).
Marcia Posner, Federation of New York and the Jewish Book Council, New York City
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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