A Sweet Year: A Taste of the Jewish Holidays

by Mark Podwal

The Jewish year is blessed with many holidays, and each one has its special food. From Rosh Hashanah to Shavuot, from the Seder meal to the Sabbath meal, food celebrates the season and commemorates the miraculous. With lyrical prose and rich, vivid paintings, renowned artist Mark Podwal takes an inspired look at the age-old bond between the sacred and the sumptuous in this glorious gift book for any holiday in the Jewish year.

Genres: Jewish

32 pages, Hardcover

First published August 26, 2003

About the author

Mark Podwal was an American artist, author, filmmaker and physician. He may have been best known initially for his drawings on The New York Times Op-Ed page. In addition, he is the author and illustrator of numerous books. Most of these works—Podwal's own as well as those he has illustrated for others—typically focus on Jewish legend, history and tradition. His art is represented in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Israel Museum, the National Gallery of Prague, the Jewish Museums in Berlin, Vienna, Stockholm, Prague, New York, among many other venues.

Reviews

[Shoshanna]

A simple book telling about different foods and how they relate to each holiday. The writing nor the illustration pulled me in.

[S10_Jessica Oster]

format: picture book
age: grades 1-7
protagonist: n/a

Written in a semi-poetic style, Podwal focuses on the different foods that are prepared and eaten for different Jewish holidays throughout the year. The illustrations are a bit more abstract and nicely colored, they seem a bit out of place and too abstract for topic of food and holiday. Also, the semi-poetic element does not allow for a lot of authentic information to be addressed as many of the foods and holidays are mentioned in a general way. However, Podwal does include a section at the end of the book with briefly addresses each holiday and thus providing more solid and accessible information. This could be used as a tag-along tool for introducing Jewish holidays and the foods that coincide with them; however, I'm betting that there are more worth while books out there for this sort of topic.

[Caitlin McMorrow]

This book is very informational. It takes you along the year and explains and gives information on Jewish Holidays. It discusses specific food with each Holiday.

Although, I wouldn't necessarily read this book to my class, it would be a great reference for any student working on a project about Jewish Holidays. This book also could be used to compare different holidays in a social studies lesson.