My First Shabbat Board Book

This is a really lovely book that introduces young children to the key concepts of Shabbat. It has great photos and is designed very artfully. Lest one take such quality for granted, the two other Jewish board books in this series, one about Passover and one about Hannukah, are not as nice--they seem to have been put together with less care, and the photos are not as fetching.

My daughter discovered this book just as she turned 1, and it is one of her favorites! She gets so excited to pick out objects or tasks that she can recognize from her weekly ritual, like candles, challah, cleanup, strawberries, a Torah scroll, and "kiddush." She likes to wave her hands over the candle picture and place her hands over her head to "bless the children." She loves the bright, cheerful photographs. Although some of the ideas are beyond her, like the seven days of creation, she likes looking and the flowers and birds and animals that appear as part of the narrative. She especially likes the baby that is pictured as part of the Saturday afternoon "rest" activity, but she doesn't mind that the other characters in the book are older children. As a parent reader, I am secretly gratified to see the family in the book using familiar-looking siddurim and living a traditional lifestyle without being too old-fashioned about it. This is a wonderful pictorial introduction to Shabbat suitable for everyone in the preschool range.

This is a great book, great pictures. I would reccomend this book for children 3yrs and up. There is quite a bit of text in it. I thought there would be just pictures. Oh well, I will save it for my daughter when she is a bit older.

This is one of my daughter's favorite books. She absolutely loves it, asks for it by name, and has much of it memorized. On Friday nights she calls out "kiddush!" at the right time, and immediately recognizes the havdalah candle on Motsei Shabbat--all because of this fun, entertaining work that we enjoy reading to her. She began reading it when she was one and a half and now, at age two, she loves it more than ever. I recommend it highly. As a Masorti/Conservative rabbi, I must also add that this book strikes the perfect balance between being traditional, yet appealing to families who have a less traditional orientation. It is fit for the Shabbat observant while being informative and educational for the less affiliated family. Kol Ha Kavod to Clare Lister et. al. who put this book together. If I had been asked to proofread it, there are some pointers I would have made, but overall, I still give it 5 stars.

This is a very cute book that introduces some of the basic items of Shabbat. It is a durable board book with full color pictures on each page. Overall, it is a good item. However, there could have been more detail and explanation. The children shown in the book seem older than the appropriate age (preschool) of children who would get the most use out of the book.