This is the Challah - Softcover

Hepker, Sue

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0874419220 ISBN 13: 9780874419221

Publisher: Behrman House, 2012

Synopsis

Bubbe is preparing for Shabbat and her granddaughter gets to help with a very important part: baking the challah. They work together with enthusiasm, even as the sugar spills, the baby cries, and eggs crack on the floor! Bubbe lovingly holds it all together as the chaos builds and then dissipates into a warm, loving family dinner. Told in a cumulative rhyme, This is the Challah makes a perfect read-aloud for bedtime or anytime!

SPECIAL FEATURES

Bubbe s challah recipe make your own!

Beautiful full-color illustrations bursting with energy and humor

About this title

About the Author

Sue Hepker was born and educated in South Africa, where she taught English and developed a passion for developing children s books. She published The Little Library, containing a series of 20 multicultural books for young children. The Little Library won the IBBY-Asahi Reading Promotion Award at the Children s Book Fair in Bologna. In 1996, she emigrated with her husband and two children to Chicago, where she continued to work in the field of early literacy development. This is the Challah is her first book to be written specifically for Jewish children, and was inspired both by her grand daughter and by the wonderful Jewish community in Lakeview, Chicago.

Amy Wummer has been working in the field of illustration since the early nineties. She specializes in whimsical, lighthearted themes and works in pencil, ink, and watercolors with more than 60 titles to her credit. Amy received the Highlights for Children Cover of the Year award in 1998, 2007, and 2009, the 2006 Paterson Prize for Books for Young People, the Highlights for Children Illustrator of the Month award in 2003 and 2007, and was a 2002 Gold Medallion Book Award finalist. She and her husband, Mark, also an artist, live in Pennsylvania. They are the parents of three grown children, Jesse, Maisie, and Adam.

Review

A brisk, lively cumulative narrative highlights the joyous making of the traditional Sabbath bread, made a little messy when two energetic youngsters help their patient grandmother in the kitchen.
After introducing the challah that Bubbe made, ingredients such as water, sugar, salt, yeast, oil, eggs and flour are introduced with each new line of the text, until it is time for a baker s expertise. These are the hands that squished the flour / that thickened the oil / that softened the sugar / that sweetened the eggs / that whipped the yeast / that frothed the water / that went in the challah that Bubbe made. Cheery watercolor-and-graphite drawings depict a modern and youthful-looking grandmother simultaneously administering instructions to a preschool-aged granddaughter and overseeing spilled mishaps by a toddler-aged grandson. They bring out a visual story that parallels the one described in the narrative, culminating in a warm, family dinner. The traditional blessing is reproduced in Hebrew characters, Romanized Hebrew and English, while the dog looks impishly out from under the tablecloth.
Pleasant and easy to recite, the recurring phrases should help guide children as they recreate their own culinary mayhem when helping out in the weekly Sabbath preparation. (recipe) (Picture book. 3-6) --Kirkus Reviews

[I]f you don't know your latkes from your challah, it's time to dive in to Mama Doni's first cookbook, Get Cooking: A Jewish American Family Cookbook. The Jewish-American musical maven (along with Rachel Harkham) has created a culinary masterpiece with recipes that focus on fun and flavor! From Rosh Hashanah to Purim, Tu BiShevat (aka The Jewish Earth Day) to Chanukah, there are recipes for every holiday, and for busy moms, they're super easy to make! --Celebrity Parents Magazine

About this edition

• Publisher: Behrman House
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0874419220
• ISBN 13: 9780874419221
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 24
• Illustrator: Wummer Amy