Writing honestly for young children is a difficult but essential art. There is magic in fairy tales and myths as well as a brave confrontation with childhood fears. “Cinderella,” “Rumpelstiltskin” and “The Beauty and The Beast” are, in many ways, nightmarish tales. Yet those stories, which end happily, allow children the space to face their worst fears.
But there is a thin line between unnecessarily scaring children and helping children grow up.
Grace Ragues Maisel and Samantha Shubert, with an assist from the excellent illustrations of Tammy L. Keiser, bring to young Jewish children exactly what the authors claim in their introduction — stories that “teach a love of Judaism” and a pride in the Jewish people.
The stories, much more gentle than the aforementioned fairly tales, are ideal for children ages 3 to 6. This book is not only for observant Jews but also for the many secular Jewish parents who want to pass on to their children an appreciation and love of Jewish life and heritage.
The stories are organized as teaching lessons. There are stories about Jewish holidays, and about about brave and wise Jewish women. There’s a tale about Elijah’s meeting with a gifted and sensitive 3-year-old girl during which the prophet explains his attempt to alleviate human suffering. Another story dwells on the great Rabbi Hillel and the way he speaks to a sarcastic boy, calming the child. Still another concerns the love between a master craftsman and his adult son and how both men place their relationship above the acquisition of wealth. There’s a beautiful story about two sisters, which concludes with the sisters embracing in an inescapable truth: “The love in that hug was so great that even God could feel it. This was the kind of hug that God remembers forever …”
The stories are moral tales that teach children patience, mutual respect between young and old, and Jews’ responsibility as Jews to care about their community — and by implication — the entire human race.
A happy ending, these stories teach, is not about becoming wealthy, but about doing good things for others.
Reading these stories, I thought of my nephews, the oldest now 14, the youngest soon to be 9. They have grown up in a very different world than that of my brother and myself. The generation my nephews belong to seems, at times, impossibly far from the world of their parents and grandparents.
Yet the world they face is strikingly similar: a place where they will have to affirm or deny the values of Judaism in the face of difficult social and peer pressure and where childhood dreams are, most often, not fulfilled easily if at all.
Judaism teaches us to not run from the difficulties in life, to affirm the need for repentance, prayer and charity as well as the satisfaction of shared love, honesty and hospitality.
“A Year of Jewish Stories” is an excellent book for parents who want to teach their young children the beauty of Judaism and the importance of selflessness and compassion.
“A Year of Jewish Stories: 52 Tales for Children and Their Families” by Grace Ragues Maisel and Samantha Shubert (232 pages, UAHC Press, $29.95)