When I was about five years old, my parents' irreligious life ended. In its place came a life of synagogue attendance, restricted eating habits and our nuclear family doubled in size. I didn't really mind giving up pork spare ribs, (for we had become kosher). I didn't mind spending Saturdays playing in the children's services instead of going to the zoo. What I did mind were the endless hours on Saturday afternoons when we weren't aloud to draw or listen to music or watch television, among other things. I suppose if you grow up always having a religious Sabbath observance then you would not mind the restrictions as much. For me, it was torture. Possibly, if I had had some books that explained to me why this was happening and what I could do to enhance the Sabbath, maybe it would not have been so trying.

Three of these Sabbath books are actually about preparing for and anticipating the Sabbath. Come Let Us Welcome Shabbat is more of a how-to guide. It gives one the step by step answers to why it is happening and how to celebrate it. It has sheet music to blessings, grace and songs. It contains a challah recipe. And it talks about creation quite a lot. For those families, like mine once was, who are learning what to do from their children and their children's school, this is a handy little book. For all others it might not be the ticket.

If you have read other "Noah books", this one is not much different. Noah is wondering when Shabbat will return. Every day he asks his teacher if the holiday has arrived. His teacher misunderstands and thinks he is asking about a real holiday like New Year. She keeps saying no. His anxiety increases as he is discouraged further. Finally Friday comes and he finds that this is the day he has been looking forward to.

It is a pleasant idea to think of the Sabbath as something to celebrate each week. Sadly, Noah loses his appetite and enthusiasm for his activities. Perhaps the lesson in this book is for parents and teachers to take children's worries seriously.

Springer's pictures are classic children's book illustrations. Big, bright and bold pictures where the children look similar and the audience digest them in a jiffy. The added benefit in A Holiday for Noah is that the audience is able to see kippah clad children who look modern and not ultra-orthodox.

A niggun is a tune that is sung either without words or with a few meaningless one. The words "bim" and "bom" are often used when singing niggunim. The story of Bim and Bom is an explanation of how that came to be.

Bim and Bom are two friends. Bim builds houses and her friend Bom is a baker. Both of them have four day a week jobs. On Friday, Bim builds houses for poor people, while Bom delivers challah for those who cannot pay.

The story illustrates a simplistic view of the world, but it is a beautiful one. It seems to solve societal problems effortlessly. The two love their jobs. It is easy for them to help others, then Shabbat comes and then they rest together. This ideal is one worth sharing with children.

Lastly, there is the story of a lost bear who goes to New York. He keeps stealing honey that a family needs to make a certain Sabbath dish. After numerous trips to the store (by the grandchildren and then the zayde), the bubbe takes over and gets honey herself. When the bear tries to steal her honey she says "Bears don't live in Brooklyn." and that stops the bear in his tracks.

Depicting typical Jewish life is difficult these days. In my son's Jewish school, all the photo copying material seems to be taken from one ultra orthodox holiday book. Despite the fact that no ear locks or black hats are worn in his school, all the mothers in the pictures cover their hair. All boys wear mega-yarmulkas.

Himmelman and Kimmelman must have discussed the matter carefully when they added their Days of Awe book (buy it from Amazon) to their series on Jewish holidays. Unlike Channuka or Passover, a scene in the synagogue had to be included in Sound the Shofar. In order to appeal to the greatest number, their rabbi is in fact a man. But the cantor is a woman which will seem usual to many and spark discussion for those who have never seen a woman on the other side of the partition.

Uncle Jake is the shofar blower in this family. All the relatives join together and have a role in the works, whether it is mother lighting the candles or cousins dipping apple in honey.

After Rosh Hashana, Uncle Jake counts off the days until Yom Kippur. The children remember and regret the bad things that they have done. Finally, Uncle Jake, looking like a jazz musician, plays the final notes on his shofar.

For the little fans of Kimmelman and Himmelman's simple books, they will be happy to know that the signature ginger cats run wild through the pages of Sound the Shofar.

If you have ever heard the sentence "Silly little Sammy, spiders don't celebrate ____, spiders spin webs," then you have read a Sammy spider book. A silly little series that is Eric Carlesque in its repetition and artistic style. Some may find them as sickly sweet as pure honey, others enjoy the familiarity of the characters, the conscious lack of sexism, Sammy's ability to participate in holidays despite his mother's discouragement.

Sammy Spider is back. He is excited about greetings cards, round challah breads, apples and most of all honey. This book is not only about Sammy's wish to eat apples dipped in honey but also about sizes.

On January first, when everyone will be sleeping off their hangovers or wishing that their £500 an hour babysitter had stayed to give the children breakfast, there will be a whole group of people who will have passed the millennium hoopla by. They will be the people who exclusively celebrate the Jewish New Year, sometime each September.

How do they celebrate? They go to synagogue. They eat apples dipped in honey. They blow certain sounds from a ram's horn. And they reflect on their behaviour during the past year.

In The World's Birthday, Daniel wants to celebrate in a more traditional birthday fashion. He enjoys all the traditional rituals but what he longs for is a party with a cake and candles.

His older sister scoffs at the idea. His parents think he will forget about it. But when he doesn't, they allow him to buy the largest cake at the bakery and invite whomever he pleases. They have a small party in their garden and the wind blows out the candles.

The story is compelling. The characters are skilfully drawn. It is well written. Despite one unnecessary translation of challah as "egg bread", the story is suitable for the knowledgeable and uninformed child alike.

Winter's illustrations are richly textured and filled with movement and detail. The enormous birthday cake looks far better than any honey cake that one is traditionally served.

Almost everyone has read a far-fetched, but enjoyable story such as how the tiger got its stripes or why the elephant has a long trunk. How the Rosh Hashana Challah Became Round is from that genre. It may have happened, but unlikely to have. That hardly matters. More importantly, it is memorable. It is certainly a tale that a child could proudly re-tell to a table full of doting relatives.

The story is about Yossi, the first born in a baker's family. He was his father's helper and became self-important. On the day before Rosh Hashana, he was singing a song about himself, as he was carrying braided challahs to the oven. He tripped and fell, along with the challahs, down some stairs.

The challahs transformed into swirling, fat, round loaves. Due to a lack of time, they baked them anyway. People complained but bought them. Luckily, the town's rabbi found symbolism in their shape that lent itself well to the holiday.

Migron's drawings look like classic Israeli picture book drawings. The cartoons are drawn in coloured pencil. The lines are simple. The women are fat and flamboyantly dressed. The pictures successfully convey a feeling of small town life many years ago.

How does one help a child understand Yom Kippur? It is quite simple if they have done something memorably naughty. But one would not hope for such an opportunity. Otherwise, one must be extremely creative because Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, has little to work with.

In The Magic of Kol Nidre Siegel focuses on the number three. The cantor repeats the service three times. He or she starts out quietly and increases the volume with each recitation.

The story's protagonist tries to interpret the significance during three stages of his life; as a child, a father and a grandfather. It is not until he is in his final period that he understands what the magic is that his grandfather eluded to when he was a boy.

This is a serious, complex and moving story. It is a cerebral tale with little action and lots to consider. The illustrations are watercolour on one side, stained glass imitations on the other. The paintings of each of three stages of the boy's life is tinted with a different colour. They mostly depict people sitting in synagogue.

Anyone who grew up with Philip Goodman's holiday anthologies will remember K'tonton, the Jewish Tom Thumb. Like his gentile brother, K'tonton is mischievous and clever. He is hardly an advertisement for a well disciplined child, but that (and his size) is precisely why he is adored by children.

K'tonton's Yom Kippur Kitten is about a stray kitten who K'tonton takes pity upon. His mother reluctantly feeds it and it returns daily.

When K'tonton knocks over the last of the honey for the honey cake, he blames it on the kitten. Thus K'tonton is wracked with guilt and learns the true meaning of Yom Kippur.

The story is compelling. His internal struggle is perhaps over dramatised but it certainly drives home the point of the harm in lying. In K'tonton's Sukkot Adventure, he hides in his father's etrog box because his father thinks he is too small to join him in synagogue. He is carried off and is only discovered when he raises his voice too loudly in prayer while swinging on the palm branches of his father's lulav.

At the beginning of each of Weilerstein's stories she recaps K'tonton's origins. In the Sukkot Adventure, the whole story is told because part of the recipe for successful conception was that K'tonton's mother had to bite off the end of an etrog.

The books are illustrated in black and white, cross hatch and watercolour. K'tonton is adorable. His parents are larger than life in comparison. It is possible that to young children all parents appear so.

For the majority of Jewish children, their Judaism is confined to certain parts of their lives; school perhaps, synagogue occasionally, and traditional family activities. Finding Judaism in unexpected places can be a delightful surprise for children. They can get a small sense of what it must be like to live in Jerusalem or New York where Judaism is not often hidden.

Zalben's stories revolve around an extended family of Jewish bears. They are similar to many other children's book animal characters except that they wear kippot, skull caps, on their heads and go to synagogue. Children appreciate the similarity that these bears have to their secular book characters, while cherishing their Jewish connection.

The plots of these stories are simple while their Jewish content is significant. Happy New Year, Beni, is about feuding cousins who learn to ask forgiveness from one another.

Leo & Blossom's Sukkah is about a band of cousins who work together to build a sukkah. They run into trouble but their parents help out to set things right. They have a wonderful celebration, tell the story of Sukkot and fall asleep under the stars. Beni's Family Treasury includes those two stories plus three more (about Chanukah, Purim and Passover). All of the stories are low key but well written. Each has a little factual surprise at the end. There are recipes for latkes and hamantaschen. There are instructions for what to include on your seder plate or in your succah. The Four Questions are listed, as well as the parts and plot for a Purim play.

In the early 90's a devastating firestorm in Oakland, California, burned down nearly three and half thousand houses. The fire spread quickly and virtually nothing was saved except, of course most importantly, most of the lives.

How do urban dwellers celebrate Sukkot properly without a yard or garden in which to build a sukkah? The answer is that they cope. They tend to eat in synagogue or school sukkahs, some stay with relatives in the country or suburbs and others may be lucky enough to have landlords who permit them to build a sukkah in the building's courtyard or on the roof.

The House on the Roof is about a man who was determined to build a sukkah of his own. His landlady lived in his building and was not a happy person. Instead of asking permission and being refused, he builds one without her knowledge.

It is not until she follows him and his grandchildren up to the roof does she discover what he has done. Not only does she aggressively break up the party, she takes the old man to court. Luckily, the judge is sympathetic and the story ends happily.

This is a story about determination and bitterness. Few urban American Jews come across such obvious hostility as is shown in this story. Most have their Judaism go unchallenged. The book is careful to show that the landlady is angry at the man even before she knows what he is doing. One is left with the uncertainty of whether she is anti-Semitic or merely unhappy and bored.

The House on the Roof is illustrated with a minimal pallet of colours but with lots of character and emotion. As the old man gathers the materials from a variety of sources, one can see his fatigue, concentration, pride and happiness. Anger, sourness and sorrow plainly coat the landlady's face.

This is a story that children will recognise each year, as the seasonal storybooks are dug out. They will be pleased to rediscover it and will understand more about it as they age.

Buy 'All about Sukkot' from Amazon US | Amazon UK

For the grandmother, the graphic details of the holiday's origin and the explanation of religious freedom seem to be the most important part of Hannukah. Presents are not even mentioned in this story. Food is consequential, as well. Along with the secret of how to fish eggshells out of egg, Grandma's latke recipe is included.

Eve Chwast's illustrations are woodcuts printed on Japanese rice paper and painted with watercolours. They are an exotic choice for Grandma's Latkes but they work.

Schotter's story is accessible to those who know about the holiday as well as those who don't. He subtly explains the main elements of the holiday without interfering with the light mood of the book. He provides a glossary of terms and page long version of the history at the end. Marilyn Hafner's illustrations are rich in detail and good ideas. The quantities of food, love and life are excellently depicted here.

A Caldecott Honor book, originally published in the highly acclaimed Cricket magazine, Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins is a Hannukah story that is fresh and surprising.

When Hershel journeys to a village to celebrate Hanukkah and finds no Hanukkah there, he is determined to change things. He offers to spend eight nights of Hanukkah in the haunted synagogue on the hill. Through his ingenuity and wit, he outsmarts the goblins and manages to scare them away.

"The lesson of Purim: People should be able to live as they wish ... as long as they don't hurt anybody."

The story of Purim has a long lasting moral that is extremely relevant today. If Austria can elect open anti-semites to their government, the story of Purim does not seem to be an archaic twenty five hundred year old story.

Lessac's illustrations are naïve. They bare a lot of detail of Persian costumes, architecture, plants and pets. People come in a variety of colours and our heroine falls somewhere in the middle with her long black hair and fair eyes.

Unlike in Esther's Story, the king instantly falls in love with Esther for her beauty alone. It was her modest white dress and not her sense of humour that won his heart.

The story stays true to the original version. In addition Golden Gelman adds a Purim notebook which adds some historical information on how the holiday is celebrated today.

If you enjoyed lighting candles with the Shapiro family last Channukah then you will know what to expect this Purim. Sammy is eager as ever to participate in the holiday but as usual Sammy is discouraged. "Spiders don't spin graggers, spiders spin webs."

For those who don't know the Sammy characters and their accessible watercolours à la Eric Carle, should choose a holiday and try him out. Each one is laden with repetition. They are perfect for exciting little holiday makers if their parents are in the mood to read the books with enthusiasm.

If you enjoyed A Turn for Noah: a Hannuka story you will find a similarly unhappy Noah in this book, the fourth in the Noah series.

Noah is still in nursery along with his classmates who all look alike. They are preparing costumes for the Purim parade. As usual Noah is in a quandary, but this time he has a new baby to contend with as well.

Luckily, there is a happy ending for Noah and for us. This book is far from great literature but it is very satisfying for Jewish children to see a nursery classroom filled with kippa clad heads and holiday projects which are their projects.

In late 400 B.C.E. there lived a king and the story of a period of his reign was recorded in the Book of Esther. Because the tale is of the near destruction of the Jews of Persia and neighbouring lands, Jewish people around the world commemorate the near tragedy by celebrating Purim. The story has been retold in many different ways. But the story line never fails to excite its audience because it is a tale of deceit and purity, honour and evil, love and piety.

Miriam's Cup tells the story of the liberation of the Jews from Egypt. A mother tells her son and daughter (Elijah and Miriam) about the prophet Miriam. Miriam plays a large and not well acknowledged role in the story of Passover.

She reunites her parents, reunites the baby Moses with his mother after he is sent down the Nile. Miriam, apparently, kept the Jews spirits up as they waited for Moses' return. She leads women in songs of thanks to God for liberating them. She seems to be the backbone of the events of the story of Passover.

The story is illustrated with large, stirring pictures. Miriam the Prophetess looks like Miriam the girl, who is learning of her namesake. Moses is old and stern. The Red Sea is wild and thunderous.

Miriam's Cup invites the reader to start this recently begun tradition by placing a cup in her honour on one's own seder table. The cup is there to remind us of her sacrifice and heroism. It is to remind us of the many unsung women in the bible, our history.

This has just happened to Frieda Pinsky when we enter her kitchen. She is desolate until the matzah ball fairy appears and gives her a packet of fairy dust to sprinkle into her heavy mixture. The result is incredible. Her matzah balls are saved.

If you have ever read the classic story A Fish Out of Water, this is the Passover version. Yes, Frieda puts in too much. When her guests start to float up to the ceiling, she regrets her zealousness. Luckily, the matzah ball fairy returns in her little purple suit and hat and finds a way to help. The potato kugel is the answer. It is heavy enough to weigh them down.

Frieda reveals all to the family. Her mother-in-law offers to teach her how to make matzah balls without fairy dust and they all live happily ever after.

Guzner's animated illustrations depict a redheaded Frieda whose hair matches her freckles and lipstick. The fairy is shaped like a matza ball but does not look dissimilar in shape to Uncle Solly, for example. He draws a amusing scene of the family members floating around doing anything from putting on lipstick to watching television.

It is a cute fairy tale and certainly something for the children to read under the table during the long after dinner service.

Ned Bittinger has done a marvellous job of depicting Passover night in a well-off household circa the 1950s. Mother is in her pearls and white apron, the meal is lavish, the children well dressed. Some of the portraits remind one of John Singer Sergeant. Others, such as the searching for the afikomen, do not.

The story is quite a mouthful by the end, but it is quite a good reminder of what Passover has in store for the participants. The reading of this book feels like a journey through Passover night. It also has great similarities to another poem similarly designed which is Had Gadya, One Little Kid, a song that many of the little ones can't quite stay up to sing. (Lastly, for dog lovers, the family dog plays a significant role in the illustrations.)

The story is about Jasha and his grandfather who teaches him about his roots. He was particularly drawn to the story of Passover. The family lived their lives knowing that one day they would be allowed to leave. One day they are given permission and they leave immediately.

After that all Chwast woodcut style illustrations have someone dancing around, peppered with unnecessary photographs of Jewish scenes in America.

Those who are particularly critical of the United States under the Bush administration will not like this book. But for those who want a little Passover reminder of how lucky we are in the West that we are allowed to be who we are, will like this happy and predictable little story.

Do you remember the days when your birthday seemed to come once in a million years? Those were the days when summer vacation lasted forever and mornings came after what seemed like an endless sleep.

Passover was another one of those occasions that seemed to take ages to come around again. As a small child one could completely forget what the holiday was about, save a few seder table recollections. That is where The Story of Passover comes into play.

This utilitarian book spans the gamut of the festival. Beginning with cleaning preparations, definitions of important terms, the biblical tale in-depth, some seder highlights and summing up with the importance of the matza.

Paterson's water colours are skilled and detailed. Although her figures often look frozen in action, they tend to be smiley.

If you are after a story, you won't find it here. But as a refresher course for a young child, it is not a bad choice.

Recommended:

In a typical American family, Passover means an influx of relatives that you have not seen since Thanksgiving. The family in Passover Magic seems like a very close knit group. But they are probably just like most other modern families, with Uncle Harry, dentist cum magician, bringing his new wife to meet the greater family for the first time.

In other words, Passover Magic is about a real family and their seder night. The only thing that is missing is a stressed mother after the roast beef has been over cooked. Though Aunt Ina does find things to worry about. Marilyn Hafner's watercolours are filled with details that make this book a good child's seder companion (for the boring bits). She portraits a happy, loving and eventually sleepy family.

The Ma Nishtana appears at the end in English. For those who won't be learning it in Hebrew this year, this translation could be a suitable substitute.

"And before Mama could say, 'Seven children and a parrot!' Mrs Brown was gone.

Thus begins this exciting Passover tale of Mah Nishtana practice and an afikomen thief.

Ask any child what the most important parts of the seder are and most of the time the answers will be the same. Children focus on the parts in which they participate most actively, namely, the asking of the Four Questions, the Mah Nishtana, and the stealing or finding of the afikomen. The Passover Parrot focuses on these two elements, as well. Leba wants to recite the Mah Nishtana in Hebrew, but no one has time to listen to her practice. She chooses her new pet instead. Being a parrot, he learns the questions as well.

Papa does not find it funny on seder night when Leba's recitation is parroted from the kitchen cage. The bird is banished and that is when the mystery of the missing matza begins.

The power of this book is owed a lot to the illustrations. They are quirky, and full of movement and emotion. The pictures are drawn in many different styles.

Particularly enchanting are the portrait of the slew of seder guests and the illustrations of the incredibly long and steep staircases in the house.

This is a tale based on the much loved seder song, "Dayenu". The song talks of all the wonderful things that God did for the Jewish people; from the Exodus from Egypt, to the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai. But after each event or miracle is stated, one sings "Dayenu", "it would have been enough". At every seder, one asks whether it would have been enough to have been taken out of Egypt, for example, but not fed Manna in the desert.

In this story, we find Aunt Helene fed up with cleaning, and dreading the seder preparation. Uncle Murray saves the seder because he suggests they just finish cleaning the house and but not buy matza. But after they cleaned the house, Aunt Helene thinks that they might as well buy matza. They decide to buy matza but no other Passover foods.

By dissecting the various jobs to be done, the work does not seem overwhelming. But the game continues right through the seder to whether they should sing the final songs or not. They decide to. Uncle Murray responds as he has had to every other step along the way with, "good idea". This refrain, though tedious after awhile, is suppose to mimic the "Dayenu", at the end of each verse in the song.

The illustrations in Dayenu look like colouring book pictures partially coloured in. Janus Kahn's drawings star Uncle Murray and his light hearted approach to his wife's stress. They are very funny without being patronising to her. Murray knows that Helene would never really boycott the seder, but he manages to have her enjoy herself in the process.

What happens when you bake the gingerbread man in a synagogue oven? You get a smiling pack of runaway latkas. Leslie Kimmelman, the author of many Jewish holiday family books has hit a winner this time. Along with Yalowitz, a latka lover himself, they have a whole slew of Jews and non-Jews alike chasing after three crispy brown potato pancakes. In a chase to the end, one can't help but be reminded how delicious these Hannuka treats really are.

"Big and round, crisp and brown, I fry latkas by the pound," is Rebecca Bloom's mantra as she prepares for the annual Hannuka party.

"Big and round, crisp and brown, off we roll to see the town! And YOU can't catch us!" is the latkas' song as they evade her, the rabbi, the cantor, the football playing boys, the mayor, and a pair of police officers.

Paul Yalowitz's drawings are eye-catching. There is so much movement in them. Sometimes it looks like slow motion, sometimes the people look like they are zombies, on drugs, being pulled backwards by some invisible force. But all in all they are lovely. And one can't help but think that they ought to start going to the gym when the holiday season is over.

As with the gingerbread man story, there is a sense of the ridiculous as the band of people chase these three singing pancakes. But that is the also the beauty of the tale. And unlike the original story where the sneaky fox eats the cookie all by himself, when the latkas are caught, they are shared between everyone.