Holiday read-alouds are the bane of the school librarian. Boring and didactic and there is no avoiding them. After all, holidays come every year. And worst of all, students have often read the same holiday books year after year as well. No one wants to hear them again.
My solution: whenever possible, read a book that is not directly about the holiday but fits with theme. I realized I do this quite often and so decided to make it a recurring feature on this (now revived) blog.
First up, Yom Kippur. Here are two books that I read to my 1st and 2nd graders for the holiday. Neither mentions the holiday. Neither is by a Jewish author. But both are about taking responsiblity for when you do something wrong (in both cases, break something), and apologizing.
In BROKEN by X. Fang, Meimei, who has broken her Ama (grandma's) cup. Conveniently, Ama has a cat, Mimi, who Meimei lets take the blame... until she can't live with her guilt anymore. (My favorite page has a diagram of Meimei with the word TRUTH across her stomach and arrows showing how it is making its way up her body and out of her mouth). I didn't mention Yom Kippur at all but when I asked the kids why I chose this book, they knew.
THE REAL STORY by Sergio Ruzzier has a little bit of a sillier take on things. When Cat discovers an empty, broken cookie jar and asks Mouse what happened, Mouse has many explanations, each more outrageous than the last. Finally he tells the real story, which is more boring, but has the virtue of being true.
In both, it seems clear that Ama and Cat knew exactly what had happened but gave the culprit an opportunity to own up to it, although my students are not always sure about this.
Kyle Lukoff's I'M SORRY YOU GOT MAD also fits this theme but I find it didactic and not as fun a read-aloud. (Lukoff also happens to be Jewish although the book does not reference Yom Kippur explicitly.)
What other books about taking responsibility and apologizing would you add to this list?
