Book Review: A Turkish Rosh Hashanah

September 30, 2024 by Sarah White Leave a Comment

Rosh Hashanah celebrations are different in different parts of the world, and if you want a glimpse into how Sephardic Jews get ready for the holiday, check out A Turkish Rosh Hashanah by Etan Basseri with illustrations by Zeynep Özatalay.

This short picture book follows Rafael and his cousins shopping at a market in Istanbul with their grandmother. Spanish words are sprinkled in the text because Sephardic Jews are a diaspora community that settled in the Iberian peninsula (Spain and Portugal), which also influenced communities in the Middle East and North Africa, where some of the Iberian Sephardic Jews settled after being expelled from Spain. The vernacular languages are Sephardic Jews are generally derived from Spanish, Portuguese or Catalan. (I learned this from Wikipedia so if anyone knows better or different information please let me know and I’ll update!)

The children go shopping for special treats for the holiday meal and meet some cats along the way. While one child thinks the cats are creepy, Rafael is nice to them, and the cats repay that kindness when the kids encounter a bully.

When the family gathers for the feast, their grandmother explains the meaning of each of the foods: apples for sweetness, beets for freedom, dates for peace, pumpkin for forgiveness, leeks for friends who protect us and pomegranates “so that our good deeds will be as many as the seeds inside.” They also have a fish head at the table so that they will be leaders at the top in the coming year.

There’s a little more history of the Jewish community in Turkey at the back of the book, as well as information on what Rosh Hoshanah is and how it is celebrated in different communities. The Sephardic Jews, as well as Mizrachi and Hasidic Jews, have a seder meal, known as yehi ratzones in the Judeo-Spanish language known as Ladino, where special food are shared that symbolize hope for the family and the Jewish people in general for the new year.

Even if you don’t know all the history (though it’s a good idea to read the information at the back of the book before you read the story to kids if you don’t know about these traditions) this is a fun book that gives kids of all faiths a glimpse into traditions that might be different from their own but in which you can see similarities to other holidays involving food.

About the book: 32 pages, hardcover, published 2024 by Kalaniot Books. Suggested retail price $19.99.

Have you read?

Books About Bugs Through the Seasons

Growing Up Ladybug and How to Become a Butterfly are both by Stepanka Sekaninova and illustrated by Linh Dao, and they came out at the same time and are on similar themes, so let’s look at them together.

Growing Up Ladybug is narrated by Mariella, a seven-spot ladybug. She talks about the parts of a ladybug, where they live, different kinds of ladybugs, why humans love them, their defenses against predators and the life cycle of a ladybug.

The drawings are cute if not always scientifically accurate, it’s not in such a way that’s likely to confuse kids (who probably already know that ladybug mamas don’t push their larval babies around in strollers, for instance.

It’s a good general description of the life cycle of a lady bug and why we like having them around.

About the book: 32 pages, hardcover. Published 2026 by Albatross Media. Suggested retail price $16.95.

Similarly, How to Become a Butterfly covers the life cycle of a butterfly, starting with caterpillars eating burning nettle leaves. (Here Amanda is the narrator.) The book talks about a few of the more than 18,000 daytime butterflies in the world as well as other creatures that live in the meadow (there’s that ladybug again, along with crickets, bees and other bugs).

It also covers some of the enemies of caterpillars like wasps and spiders, and the defenses that caterpillars use to try to prevent being eaten. It illustrates how caterpillars grow and change as they molt and prepare to pupate, and what a caterpillar looks like before and while it is forming its chrysalis. And while the book uses the word metamorphasis it doesn’t really talk about what happens between the caterpillar forming a chrysalis and the butterfly hatching.

This butterfly is a peacock butterfly, and once it hatches the book covers the parts of a butterfly and the life cycle. It also talks about nocturnal moths (though it says nocturnal butterflies are “usually called moths” when moths are actually a different species) and what butterflies do at night.

I’m maybe a little hard on this book because my daughter is a butterfly expert from way back, but it is still cute and good for the very basic basics of the butterfly life cycle.

Both books would be fun additions to your bookshelf for younger kids starting to learn about different animals or who have an interest in insects.

About the book: 32 pages, hardcover. Published 2026 by Albatross Media. Suggested retail price $16.95.

Have you read?

Leave a Reply