Sammy Spider's First Yom Kippur

Sammy Spider

by Sylvia A. Rouss, Katherine Janus Kahn (Illustrations)

When Josh breaks the rules and plays ball indoors, he finds himself apologizing not only to his parents, but to Sammy Spider as well. A Yom Kippur story about saying, “I’m sorry.”

Genres: Jewish, Picture Books, Childrens, Judaism

32 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great story with a lesson that lasts past Yom Kippur! As is often the case with Sammy Spider, it was a bit wordy and I did find myself skipping here and there, but the message was clear and the Yom Kippur theme was nice. Because we have such a rushed start to the school year with only Friday between Yom Kippur and Sukkot, I’m not doing any Yom Kippur crafts and mostly focusing on Sukkot. . . but I really like this book as a resource and a starting point for talking about apologies and Yom Kippur!

[Julie Ditton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sammy Spider watches on as young Josh Shapiro learns about the meaning of Yom Kippur. Josh obviously goes to a Jewish Day School. the day of Atonement is coming soon and Josh's homework is to come up with a list of people that he owes apologies. When he plays ball inside and breaks the Rosh Hashana honey jar, he needs to apologize. This simple story does a great job teaching this important lesson. I love how Josh noticed that he broke the spider web and apologizes to them as well!

[Elizabeth Stiner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Simple and straightforward, it gives an explanation of Yom Kippur and does a good job of telling a story to back up the message of the holiday. The illustrations are a bit boring and simplistic. They were made to look like paper, so it lost a star for that.

[K Morlando · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great addition to our unit on Yom Kippur!

[H · Rating 5 out of 5]

Helped me learn!

Love the fourth wall break between Josh and the spider LOL

[Rachel Engwall · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great story for children of any culture to learn more about Yom Kippur, a Jewish holiday. It's great for elementary-aged children because of its easy readability. It also has some rich language, both English and Hebrew words, for students to look up the meaning of.

Sylvia A. Rouss, an insider herself, wrote this book to surround the main idea of Yom Kippur, which is apologizing. Apologizing is also a concept all children should be exposed to, especially in school.

This genre is fiction, however the holiday is not. It's important to expose students to multiple different holidays from different religions, so that they know about different cultures and backgrounds of people that surround them every day. This book would be a great piece in a collection for your classroom surrounding holidays. It would be a great book to pull out, read, and maybe even write apology letters to someone as a writing assignment afterwards.

[Mrs Mommy Booknerd http://mrsmommybooknerd.blogspot.com · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved learning more about Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. What an interesting tradition and one with such an amazing message. The story is one that is great for children to understand and appreciate the message. 4 stars!

[Leah · Rating 5 out of 5]

very informative for older children but maybe can simplify it for younger children.

[Debbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book about apologizing. we can use this to discuss Yom Kippur