For your little mensch

Laurel Snyder, probably best known for her middle-grade novels Up and Down the Scratchy Mountains, or, The Search for a Suitable Princess, Any Which Wall, and Penny Dreadful, presents a Judaism-themed board book that’s preschooler-perfect.

Nosh, Schlep, Schluff: BabYiddish records a day in the life of one young tot (could be either gender; one of the outfits makes me think girl, but maybe he’s just wearing an oversized shirt). There’s lots of humor in the kid-friendly text, which includes at least one Yiddish word per page, printed in all-caps for easy identification. My favorite line: “If you want to start a ruckus, / wave your arms and shake your TUCHES!” Tiphanie Beeke’s accompanying pastel-hued illustrations show a tousle-haired, rosy-cheeked protagonist toting around a stuffed froggy. (Why a frog? So Snyder could rhyme ribbits with KIBITZ.) A glossary might have been helpful, but almost all of the unfamiliar vocabulary is figure-out-able in context.

Elissa Gershowitz

Elissa Gershowitz is editor in chief of The Horn Book, Inc. She holds an MA from the Center for the Study of Children's Literature at Simmons University and a BA from Oberlin College.

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