Wednesday, September 18, 2024

Manushkin. The Matzah That Papa Brought Home

The Matzah That Papa Brought Home is a children's book by Fran Manushkin, with art by Ned Bittinger, published in 1995. It is available at the Internet Archive.

Here is a YouTube read-along:

Like the traditional "Jack," the story does not start out with rhymes, but it soon shifts into rhyme, specifically, rhyming couplets, as it narrates the elements of a Passover seder in order, with realistic illustrations:

Here is the end of the chain; as you can see, it is a purely temporal chain, listing one thing after another after another, in the order of the Passover ritual:

FINALLY, "NEXT YEAR IN JERUSALEM!" WE SAID,
then everyone hugged, and went to bed,
after the door was opened wide
inviting Elijah to step inside
after the afikoman was found
by searching the house and running around,
after the matzah ball soup that we sipped
after the bitter herbs that we dipped
after "Dayenu," a very long song
that we sang with our stomachs growling along
after we counted the plagues - all ten —
by dipping our pinkies again and again
after I stood up tall and proud
and asked the Four Questions nice and loud
during the Passover Seder we shared
to eat the feast that Mama made
with the matzah that Papa brought home.

I said the images were realistic, but there are frogs and locusts for the recitation of the plagues:

Then, after the end of the chain, there is one last rhyming couplet, and then another two lines including stories and matzahs, plus mamas and papas:

NOW THE PASSOVER MOON SHINES ITS BEAMS,
bringing the children of Israel sweet dreams...
and we will remember the stories and matzahs
our mamas and papas brought home.

I really like this self-reflexive page at the end, where a character is looking at himself in the book looking at himself in the book, and so on!

In the very back of the book there are some informational pages which tell "The Story of Passover."


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