The Story Behind This Hamantaschen Story!

Laura Aron Milhander is the author of Kar-Ben's newest Purim story, Not for All the Hamantaschen in Town. In Not for All the Hamantaschen in Town, the Three Little Pigs- Rishon, Sheni, and Shlishi - are getting ready for the Purim carnival. They can't wait to play games, eat hamantaschen, and march in the Purim parade. But they all need crowns for their Purim costumes. Rishon makes his paper crown very quickly. Sheni spends a little more time on his poster board crown. Slishi works hardest and longest on his wonderful papier mache crown. But will their fun at the carnival be spoiled by the big bad wolf? After all, wolves love hamantaschen, too!

Read Laura's guest post all about hamantaschen below, and then check out her book over on the Kar-Ben website!

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"Hamantaschen! Also called oznei haman, they deliciously link our diverse population of Jews, and just as our people are diverse, so are our hamantaschen.

There are hamantaschen made with cookie dough, yeast dough, honey dough, cream cheese dough, sour cream dough… Hamantaschen with the tried-and-true prune or poppy seed filling, apricot or raspberry filling… Hamantaschen with chocolate filling, chocolate hamantaschen with peanut butter filling… Girl Scout Cookie-inspired hamantaschen… Parve hamantaschen, dairy hamantaschen, even meat-filled hamantaschen… Palm-sized hamantaschen and single-bite hamantaschen… Hamantaschen recipes from professional cookbooks and temple sisterhood cookbooks, and from a multitude of websites… I can produce a hamantaschen resume that goes back decades. While I won’t be making “all the hamantaschen in town,” I’ll certainly be making enough for my family and for the shalach manot my children give their teachers (religious school and secular). But what kind of hamantaschen? Do you have a favorite recipe you stick to year after year, or do you browse online sites for new and unique challenges?

We Jews aren’t the only ones who loves hamantaschen, however. In Not for All the Hamantaschen in Town, there is a hungry wolf who has a craving for the Purim pastries, too, and he will do just about anything to get them, including huffing-and-puffing the crowns off three little pigs’ heads. I had the idea for writing Not for All the Hamantaschen in Town after reading my children a secular retelling of another fairy tale. Retellings are popular and frequently offer their readers insights into other cultures and traditions, and I wanted to create one with my own Jewish twist. Weaving Jewish holiday celebrations into familiar fairy tales would be something special to offer Jewish families, giving our children the chance to see well-known characters observing our holidays and learning valuable lessons as well. There is even a delectable hamantaschen recipe at the end of the story!

What recipe will you make? I have come full circle to find that my favorite hamantaschen are the traditional ones: A simple, sweet dough filled with poppy seed and apricot fillings. I may continue to try the latest recipes from year to year (taco hamantaschen, éclair hamantaschen), but making hamantaschen like the ones our ancestors made and enjoyed as they, too, celebrated Purim really hits the spot.

I hope you have a Chag Purim Sameach!"

Perfect Purim Crafts for 2016!

Purim is a wonderful holiday to celebrate with children. Costumes, groggers, and hamantaschen afford many opportunities for creativity, imagination, and fun. Below we have some fun takes on these traditional activities, as well as some new crafts to celebrate at home or in the classroom!

Make Some Noise with Sammy Spider
This simple grogger is made using a paper plate, and is the same one in one of our favorite Purim books - Sammy Spider's First Purim! Get ready for the Megillah reading with this fun and easy craft for all ages. Instructions here.


Send a Hamantaschen Card
This cute cards fold up to look like hamantaschen, and unfold to reveal well-wishes for Purim! This simple craft, which requires paper, scissors, and markers, is great for at home or in the classroom. Find instructions here.

Jewish Heroes Project
Discuss the heroes of the Purim story. Students select and research their own Jewish hero, notable for his/her impact on Jewish/greater society. On Purim, organize a "living museum": students dress up as their heroes. The students should be able to give basic biographical information about their hero, in addition to discussing their impact. Each student has to interview another hero (hint: use the 5 W's to focus the students). Publish/hang up hero interviews. More educational ideas here.

From www.Lookstein.org.

Easy Purim Masks Complement Any Costume
With a little help, any kid can create their own costume using this simple DIY Purim mask! A perfect Purim craft for the classroom, or to accent an almost-complete costume, this masks allows kids to add their own artistic flair. Instructions here.

From Here We Are Together.

Beaded Crowns for Older Kids
If you kids are a little old for paper masks, or would enjoy more of a challenge, try these beaded crowns! They'll also last longer than paper masks, so could potentially be used in years to come. Different colors of beads can be used to complement different costumes, and instructions include both a "Queen's Crown" and a "King's Crown." Instructions here.

From Chadis Crafts Fun Pages.

Put on a Purim Puppet Show
Make your own puppets to put on a Purim play! These instructions and templates from JewishKids.org make it a fun and simple way to let everyone participate in telling the story of Purim. Instructions here. 


Test How Much You Really Know!
This fun and interactive Jeopardy-style quiz lets two people compete to answer Purim questions. Test your knowledge on your own, challenge a friend, or set up a family or classroom-sized competition to see who knows the most! Take the quiz here.

From Quia.com.

Make Your Own Megillah Scroll
Color the pictures on this page, then cut them out into two strips. Tape the strips together and tape the end to an empty paper towel roll cut to size. Roll up your Megillah and fasten with a ribbon or rubber band. Now you have your very own Megillah scroll that tells the story of Purim!





Learn More About Purim with a Good Book!
Children's books about Purim are a great way to enrich the holiday celebration. From learning all about Purim traditions with Sammy Spider to animals putting on a Purim play, these stories offer fun and interesting additions to any Purim celebration. These and other Purim books available on the Kar-Ben website!

Not for All the Hamantaschen in Town

The Three Little Pigs - Rishon, Sheni, and Shlishi - are getting ready for the Purim carnival. But they all need crowns for their Purim costumes. Rishon makes his paper crown very quickly. Sheni spends a little more time on his poster board crown. Slishi works hardest and longest on his wonderful papier mache crown. But will their fun at the carnival be spoiled by the big bad wolf? After all, wolves love hamantaschen, too!

Barnyard Purim
Purim is a topsy-turvy time, even on the farm. The animals decide to stage a Purim play, and Chicken assigns the parts. Blushing Duck is Queen Esther, Silly Horse is Ahashuerus, and Bearded Goat is Mordechai. But when they try to transform Shy Little Sheep into mean-looking Haman, something unexpected happens.

Sammy Spider's First Purim
Sammy Spider wants to help Josh get ready for Purim. Instead, he gets stuck inside a grogger. How will he escape?

The Queen Who Saved Her People
The Purim story has never been more fun! This lavishly rhyming tale is a wonderful read-aloud book, and its color-coded dialogue is perfect for Reader's Theater performances.



The Purim Superhero
Nate loves aliens and he really wants to wear an alien costume for Purim, but his friends are all dressing as superheroes and he wants to fit in. What will he do? With the help of his two dads he makes a surprising decision.

The True Story of Nonna

Karen Fisman is the author of Nonna's Hanukkah Surprise. Below, she shares the story of the Nonna who inspired her interfaith Hanukkah story.

You can get Nonna's Hanukkah Surprise, as well as Kar-Ben's annual Hanukkah deal, 8 Books for $8, on the Kar-Ben website.

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In a couple of weeks time, I will be travelling to the remote Canadian city of Sault Ste Marie to do a reading of Nonna's Hanukkah Surprise. Sault Ste Marie, or the Soo as it is affectionately known, has a large population of second generation immigrant families. There are lots of Finns and Italians, but very few Jews. So why, you may be wondering, would I be travelling there to do a Hanukkah reading?

Well, if a book could have a birthplace, Nonna's Hanukkah Surprise would have been born in the Soo. That was where I first met Nonna, and it was also where I learned about the joy of sharing holiday traditions with non-Jewish family.

Nonna was Italian and Catholic. She had emigrated from Calabria to the Soo in the 1950's, settling in that bitterly cold city with its beautiful stark surroundings and a steel mill that provided jobs to new immigrants. When I met Nonna, she was in her seventies, and as the Italian immigrant community stuck together, I was one of the first Jews that she had ever met.

I still remember that first meeting: Nonna hugging me tight, then shepherding me to the kitchen where everyone was gathered. I was peppered with questions about my family and what I did. The topic of my Jewish identity went untouched, but when dinner was served, Nonna took me aside to share that, especially for me, she'd made her meatballs without pork that day. Several years later our son was born, and the issues became larger than pork in the meatballs. We had decided to raise our kids as Jews and Nonna struggled to understand how this would impact her grandchild. When she came to visit the new baby, she brought him a gift, a Magen David and a cross, hanging together on a gold chain as in her mind, her grandchild was both Jewish and Christian. My husband gently explained that this was not the case. There would be no baptism, but there would be a bris. Her grandchild would be raised as a Jew.

We'll never know what internal struggle Nonna might have had with our decision. We only experienced her full-on effort to understand and be a part of our Jewish lives. She visited us during the holidays, paying close attention at the Passover seders, and witnessing (though not participating in) our Yom Kippur fasts. We would visit her at Christmas, bringing along first one child and then two, excluding ourselves from church services, but enjoying the holiday feasts and family time.

As our kids got older, we started packing a Hanukkah bag for our Christmas visits, whether the holidays coincided or not. Our kids delighted in teaching Nonna and the cousins to play dreidl, using chocolate gelt as currency. In subsequent years, the Hanukkah bag grew as our kids contributed their ideas. We schlepped Hanukkah decorations, menorah, beeswax candles and Hanukkah stories along. We also bought Nonna a food processor to expedite our latke making, as latkes had become a staple of the holiday feasts. It was a wonderful way of sharing our celebration as Nonna and the cousins were sharing theirs.

Nonna passed away some years ago. Reflecting on the sweet memories of our holiday visits, I wrote Nonna's Hanukkah Surprise, about an inter-faith family's holiday celebration. The story is about little Rachel, who brings Hanukkah to her non-Jewish Nonna's house. When things happen to go awry, it's Nonna (of course) who steps up to save the day.

So now, I imagine, you can understand why I will be travelling to the Soo with my family and our Hanukkah bag to do a Hanukkah reading. The reading will be hosted by the church that Nonna used to belong to. Churchgoers will be at the event along with members of the Soo's Jewish community. And I will be sharing Nonna's Hanukkah Surprise and its message of love and acceptance with all of them.

Happy Hanukkah to all!

Celebrating and Sharing this Sukkot

By Rebecca Goldsteen

Find Shanghai Sukkah and more great Sukkot titles at the Kar-Ben website.

The Jewish people are unique in many ways, including the ways in which we celebrate our holidays. Instead of just remembering the past, our customs remind us to look to the future and many of our holiday rituals lend themselves to being reinterpreted for the age in which we live. On Sukkot, for example, we build a sukkah in which we eat and, weather permitting (I’m from Minnesota!), sleep. Not only does this remind us of the huts in which the Jews lived as they wandered in the desert for 40 years, but it also reminds us to appreciate the natural world – the weather, the harvest, the outdoors.

Growing up, I knew that the end of Yom Kippur meant that Sukkot was coming. My brothers and I helped my dad build the sukkah, which usually involved my dad doing all the real building, with my brothers helping hold things up, and me trying to figure out how to tie fruit onto strings without it falling off the sukkah roof, still a struggle for me after 20 years. We brought home sukkah decorations we made in day school and did our best to make our sukkah as beautiful as possible. With the arrival of Sukkot, we took turns saying the blessings and shaking the lulav and etrog. We ate delicious dinners of fruits and vegetables, kugel, and kreplach. If it wasn’t too cold outside, we would put on our warmest pajamas, take our sleeping bags and pillows, and camp out in our sukkah telling stories into the night.

Like Marcus in the book “Shanghai Sukkah,”who wonders how he will celebrate Sukkot in his new home in Shanghai,  I wondered how I would celebrate Sukkot  when I started school at the University of Illinois three years ago. Fortunately, my school has a wonderful Chabad, Hillel, and JET (Jewish Education Team), each with its own sukkah. In fact, Chabad even sets up a sukkah outside my freshman dorm (many Jewish freshmen tend to live in this dorm) and brings a portable sukkah along with a lulav and etrog to the quad. Each of these organizations welcomes students and other visitors to eat dinner and socialize in their sukkot.

Understanding the importance of celebrating Jewish holidays begins at a young age. I have many friends who identify strongly as Jews, but don’t know the first thing about the holiday of Sukkot. They’re familiar with Hanukkah and Passover and Shabbat, but if their family didn’t celebrate Sukkot, they didn’t have the chance to learn about this very wonderful holiday. It’s important to understand our traditions and I feel lucky that I grew up in a home infused with Jewish celebration.  One friend of mine at college, once told me that she wants to know more about Judaism but is afraid to go to any of the Jewish organizations on campus because she doesn’t feel that she is “Jewish enough.” I told her that it’s never too late to learn new things about Jewish life, and that all these campus organizations are eager to welcome students just like her. The first step to embracing Judaism is to overcome the fear of thinking that you don’t know enough. None of us know everything so we’re all somewhere on the knowledge continuum!

In “Shanghai Sukkah,” when Marcus’ family flees the Holocaust, moving to Shanghai from Berlin, he befriends a Chinese boy named Liang. These two share their respective Sukkot and Moon Festival customs with each other, and Liang surprises Marcus by decorating Marcus’ sukkah with Chinese lanterns. And Marcus attends Liang’s Moon Festival celebration.

Like Marcus, I try my best to share with my peers --both Jewish and non-Jewish—my love of  Judaism.  I have convinced many of my Jewish friends to come celebrate the Jewish holidays with me on campus when they would likely have been more comfortable not participating. They always say they’re glad they came and that the celebrations make them appreciate being Jewish.

Education is never a bad thing. As we see in “Shanghai Sukkah,” the better we understand – and share -- our own customs and traditions, the more meaningful they become.  Chag sameach!

Rebecca Goldsteen , a student at the University of Illinois, was Kar-Ben’s summer intern.

Feed Your Kid's Body and Soul: High Holiday Books with Food Themes

By Jill Colella

A colleague and friend of mine who is a rabbi and an accomplished cook once likened the Jewish holiday dinner table to the bimah. Many of the components are the same— a raised surface, a gathering of people with a united purpose, and the sharing of (different forms) of sustenance with reverence and ritual. One way to experience Judaism is through its meals, especially those that happen during the fall harvest. For children especially, food is an accessible way of thinking about their wider worlds.

Basic food literacy is a critical foundation for building cooking skills, and appreciating the symbolism of food, like a beautifully braided round challah on the Rosh Hashanah table. As a writer of a Jewish cookbook for children, I was tasked with creating recipes that were basic enough for children to follow but meaningful enough for some deeper connection. This is why basic food literacy—the ability to identify ingredients—is incredibly important for children.

A few years ago during his TED Talk about the state of food for children, British celebrity chef Jamie Oliver screened a clip from his television show Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution. He was in a school classroom of six year olds in Huntington, West Virginia and had brought along different fresh vegetables. The  kids were unsuccessful in identifying fresh tomatoes!  One would think that any elementary school aged child could easily identify such a common vegetable.  And while adults may be able to identify most vegetables, many are not exactly confident about how to cook them.

We can think of cooking like reading. When you think about the act of reading, it seems difficult—recognize letters and groups of letters as sounds, and then combine those into words, and then understand a string of words as sentences. Yet, we do it, and we ask kids to do it from an early age. Cooking can be the same, and can be discovered through reading. Some of my favorite Kar-Ben books develop reading literacy, food literacy and cultural literacy all at the same time, in the most charming ways.

Talia and the Very YUM Kippur and Talia and the Rude Vegetables are clever and funny books that play with words as the title character is helping with preparations for High Holiday meals.

 

 

 

 

Apple Days tells the story of Katy, who loves making applesauce with her mother. Her enthusiasm will inspire curiosity in any reader. TheApple Tree’s Discovery is another great title for reading during “apple days,” with its message that each of us is a unique individual. The book also reveals a very special feature about apples, which will prompt young eaters to observe the foods they eat more closely.

 

Maybe the very best example of food literacy materials for children is What’s the Buzz? Honey for a Sweet New Year. The book provides photos of a school trip to an apiary (bee farm) in Israel. Truly a farm-to-fork book, the story will help young readers understand where the honey on the Rosh Hashanah table comes from.

Jill Colella is editor of two magazines about food for children, for readers ages 6-12, Ingredient (www.ingredientmag.com) and for readers ages 3-6, Butternut (www.butternutmag.com). 

Fond Memories of Jewish Summer Camp

By Rebecca Goldsteen

To celebrate summer, we're offering 20% off all Kar-Ben summer camp books. Discount taken at check-out.

Jewish summer camp was unlike any other experience in my lifetime. Some parents choose to send their children to secular summer camps, but I think these camps lack some important factors that Jewish summer camps provide and that stick with Jewish kids through adulthood. Many of the activities at Jewish summer camps connect to Judaism or Israel, allowing campers to learn about their Jewish history and culture in fun, active, and engaging ways. Additionally, because most if not all of the campers are Jewish, they share a special bond that is hard to find anyplace else in the outside world. Spending 24 hours a day for 1 to 8 weeks with the same group of people creates bonds that cannot be found going to school, synagogue, or on playdates.

I’ve made some of my best friends through my Jewish summer camp experiences. During my second summer at Camp Chi, an overnight camp near Chicago, the other pre-5^th graders and I were preparing to take our beginning-of-the-summer swim test. I hopped in the water, which reached to my chest and squealed, not wanting to get all the way into the cold swimming pool. I noticed a tall girl standing next to me. She was so tall that the water only reached to her waist. I turned to her and commented on how lucky she was to be so tall so that she didn’t have to get into the chilly water as quickly. She laughed and agreed, saying that this was one of the few things she liked about being taller than everyone else. We immediately became best friends and were bunkmates for the next six summers. Now, ten years later, she is still one of my closest friends.

I think it’s great that Kar-Ben is publishing stories about Jewish summer camps to encourage young children to want to go to camp. Picnic at Camp Shalom shows an important side of camp friendships; bonding, sensitivity, patience, and forgiveness. When kids, especially young campers, spend this much time together, there are bound to be some small problems that need to be worked out. When Carly and Sara arrive to Camp Shalom, they click immediately. One day, Carly laughs at Sara’s last name (Frankfurter), and Sara gets upset with her. Sara ignores Carly’s attempts to apologize, but when she finally has the opportunity to reveal that her own last name is Hamburger, all is forgiven and the girls laugh together.

One of the most exciting parts about Jewish summer camp is having a blast getting dirty during daily activities. Of course the campers take quick showers after painting themselves for Color Wars and before nighttime song sessions, keeping in mind the fun-filled, messy activities that will take place the following day. Because the weeks are spent this way, getting ready for Shabbat at camp is very special. No Baths at Camp illustrates this excitement felt by all young campers. Regardless of whether or not campers celebrate Shabbat at home, it is everyone’s favorite time of the week at camp. Getting ready with all your friends, taking pictures (and lots of them, since everyone only looks this nice once a week!), sitting with your cabin during services with your arms around each other during prayers, having a nice Shabbat dinner, and banging on the tables during Birkat Hamazon. The night ends with a Shabbat song session that brings many of the older campers to tears as they are reminded of their love for camp. 

As important as it is to not segregate ourselves as Jews from the rest of society, it is just as important to embrace our culture among ourselves. Regardless of whether or not children attends public school or a Jewish school, they will learn more about themselves and the joy of being part of the  Jewish community by  attending  Jewish camp than anyplace else. Because Judaism is as much an identity as a religion, it is important for kids to recognize and embrace their Judaism, regardless of the their level of observance, from a young age.

Even through my last summer of camp as a pre-11^th grader, I continued to grow and be engaged with finding myself Jewishly. Now, at age 20, preparing for my senior year of university, I have learned the importance of always keeping Judaism in my life, not only religiously, but also culturally and socially.

Rebecca Goldsteen , a Jewish summer camp enthusiast and student at the University of Illinois, is Kar-Ben’s summer intern.

Celebrating Israel on Yom Ha'atzmaut

Happy Yom Ha'atzmaut! Today celebrates Israel and commemorates the establishment of the Israeli Declaration of Independence in 1948.

How will you and your family celebrate Israel this year? We have a few recommendations below!

Crafts and Activities
Check out our list of activities to learn about and celebrate Israel at home and in the classroom. Great for any time of year, they particularly come in handy today!

The Celebrate Israel Parade
The annual Celebrate Israel Parade, begun in 1964, is held every spring in the heart of New York City. Over thirty thousand marchers stroll up Fifth Avenue. The parade showcases groups from elementary schools, high schools, yeshivot, synagogues, Jewish community centers, and many other Jewish institutions. Colorful floats, award winning marching bands, politicians, and entertainers also participate in the parade, showing their support for Israel. Tens of thousands of spectators cheer on the sidelines. The Celebrate Israel Parade is a colossal party, graciously hosted by New York City.

Sounds like fun, but can't make it to Manhattan? Enjoy the parade vicariously with our new fall title Meg Goldberg on Parade about a shy girl with a big imagination who finds plenty of ways to join in the fun - coming soon to bookstores near you!

Explore Israel Through Books!
We love to explore Israel through stories and illustrations, and we have many books dedicated to doing just that!

Hare and Tortoise Race Across Israel, a classic fable retold in a unique environment, is the newest addition to Kar-Ben's Israel-focused collection. As good friends Hare and Tortoise embark on a race from Tel Aviv to the Dead Sea, they're drawn not to well-known landmarks in Israel, but are instead seen enjoying slices of everyday Israeli life. Hare watches soccer games and street performers while Tortoise enjoys falafel and rugelach, and they see the cities of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv as well as the Judean Hills and the desert.


The "Nature in Israel" series by National Jewish Book Award-winning author Allison Ofanansky pairs holidays with celebrations unique to Israel's landscape and features beautiful full-color photographs. Titles include New Month, New Moon, Harvest of Light, What's the Buzz, and Sukkot Treasure Hunt.