At the Synagogue
Written: Oct 09 '03
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Good concept, real-life pictures
Cons: Bad organization, repetitious
The Bottom Line: For the non-Jewish reader, this book is not exactly straightforward
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| murasaki's Full Review: Dia L. Michels - Look What I See! Where Can I Be?:... |
I don’t review many children’s books, mostly because I don’t have children. However, here I am, doing my first review of a book for children younger than twelve.
First, I must note that I really like the concept behind the Look what I see! Where can I be? books. The idea is to show one item close up, from a young child’s perspective, and then, on the next page, show the larger picture. I also like the underlying series concept of children’s books that address different aspects of cultural diversity.
In this book, At the Synagogue, a two-year-old “sees” different items used in the practice of Judaism such as a menorah or a shofar and the next page links the item with a practice, ceremony, or holiday celebration. In many ways, I think this book would be very educational for both Jewish and non-Jewish children. However, the text of the book, though very spare and simple, uses Jewish terminology that, although explained in the back of the book, is rather mystifying for the Gentile audience unless the parent reading the book studies ahead or flips back and forth. From an organizational standpoint, the book would have worked better for me if the explanations were printed in smaller type on the same page on which the author uses a Jewish term. Here’s an example from the middle of the book:
“On Tuesday,
I fell asleep
In my bike seat.
When I woke up,
I saw a lulav and etrog.”
[picture of a yellow fruit on the facing page] “Where was I?”
[next page] “Rejoicing in the sukkah.” [picture of some kids and adults underneath hanging branches with garlands and Indian corn and other ornaments]
Until I read the definitions in the back, I had no idea what a lulav, sukkah, or etrog was. (And, no, I’m not going to tell you what these words mean because I’m just evil that way.)
Additionally, the text has the child falling asleep and waking up for each item. Not only was this monotonous for the adult in me, it also seemed unnecessary especially since the next question was “Where Was I?” Well, the text just told us where the two-year-old was as they fell asleep so this could be confusing to a child reading the book. Does the child need to fall asleep to focus on a particular item? I don’t think so, though I suppose if I were to read this book to a child, they wouldn’t even notice the repetition but the English teacher in me balks.
Illustrations
All of the illustrations are real-life photos, most of which include the author’s family. The quality of the photos, overall, is good, but the close-up shots are markedly clearer than the “big picture” views. I suppose it’s a quirk of the author, but each photo had either an apple posed somewhere in the background or airbrushed into the photo. I found myself playing a ‘where’s Waldo?’ type of game to find the apple in the larger illustrations. What I liked most about the photos is that they are of real people practicing real customs and not of models posing. In many ways, the photos reminded me of my social studies books from elementary school because most of the books I read as a child did not have real-life people in the illustrations.
Overall
I did like this book and the concept behind it particularly, but I did not like the organization which either required me to do some studying before reading the text to a child or to flip back and forth to the explanations. Readers familiar with the terminology won’t have this problem, but this one factor is enough of a bother for me that I am inclined to not recommend this book.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
murasaki
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