All About Passover

October 1, 2000
Gr. 2-4. The facts and traditions of Passover, Judaism's springtime celebration of freedom, are straightforwardly presented in this concise guide to the holiday. A synopsis of the Passover story leads to contemporary preparations for the holiday: cleaning house, helping those less fortunate, and cooking the seder meal. A description of the seder, from an explanation of the Haggadah to Passover recipes, completes the text. Unfortunately, the book's cheerfully colored silk screens cannot mask the illustrations' stiff, expressionless rendering of the animal and human figures. The pictures are more successful in their depiction of the family's seder, which imaginatively capsulizes the transition from Israelite slaves to free Jews. Accessible and to-the-point, this is a serviceable introduction for both general and religious collections.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2000, American Library Association.)