Celia Gurevitch Jewish Community Library

The third winner of the Sydney Taylor Book Award we purchased recently was “New Year at the pier: a Rosh Hashanah story,” by April Halprin Wayland. Ms Wayland wrote the book but when you open the book you will also be amazed by Stephane Jorisch‘s illustrations. They are lively, colorful and have a classy feeling as if they were drawn the 1920′s or 30′s of the last century. They evoke that old world charm we feel when paging through children’s books of that ear, yet at the same time they are multiethnic and clearly showing the New World.

The story is sweet and educational too. It explains from the perspective of Izzy, a young child what Tashlich is about and what he seeks forgiveness for . It teaches how hard it can be to gain it, but also how rewarding to give it. Instead of writing more about the story I would like to show its book-trailer. (A book-trailer is a like a movie trailer but for books.)

P.s. If you read this blog entry via email, you may not be able to see the video above. In that case just lick the title if the email “Wayland: New Year at the pier (2009)” and you browser will take you to the page where you can watch the short clip.