BEFORE WE EAT

A Jewish family sits down to eat. “Bread and butter on my plate. / I’m so hungry, I can’t wait. // But before I take a bite, / I say some words / that feel just right.” The unidentified narrator (a yarmulke-topped little boy or a curly-headed little girl, both early-elementary age in Iwai’s illustrations) briefly describes the hamotzi blessing, thanking God for “[g]ood food, a home, a family.” The full blessing appears on the last page in both transliterated Hebrew and a loosely translated English. This well-meaning book falls short. The two kids are too old for babies—presumably this format’s target audience—to identify with. Children in observant families will have heard hamotzi from their earliest days; an explanation is better suited to preschool children, who are full of whys, than babies and toddlers, but this vehicle is too young for them. (Board book. 2-4)