BEDTIME FOR MAZIKS

A celebration of the sometimes-exasperating, but always entertaining, shenanigans of irrepressibly energetic young children.

As Levy explains in a brief introduction, mazik “is a Yiddish word for a devilish imp or a rambunctious mischief-maker.” The story follows the daily antics of two sibling maziks—cued as female and male—with White human parents. At breakfast time, the maziks—portrayed as happy little monsters with small fangs and pink and green skin—make a huge mess; ditto during crafts time in the living room. On some days, they attend school, where they hide under or jump on the furniture. On other days, they enjoy a rowdy, splashy romp at the pool or have a wild frolic with a multiracial group of neighborhood human kids. At dinnertime, they spill their juice and slip the cat challah bread before having a bedtime pillow fight. The rhyming text is filled with rhetorical questions (“Do they rumble? / Do they fight? / Do they snarl with all their might?” etc.) as the narrator repeatedly wonders, “What do maziks do each day?” The colorful, busy artwork subtly indicates that this Jewish family observes Shabbat and ends each day with a Sh’ma prayer and that the maziks attend a Judaic school. Non-Jewish readers may miss these details, but the book’s depiction of the hectic, demanding life of an active young family will be familiar to all little hellions and their exhausted parents. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

The mayhem of young family life seen through a positive, whimsical lens.