Roadside Seder

"Dressed in his Moses costume, Benjy faces a disappointment. A fallen tree is blocking the road, and his family, along with many others, won’t make it to their Passover seders. But Benjy is ingenious and suggests that everyone unpack all the special holiday dishes from their cars. He proposes that they hold a seder of their own, using the tree as a long table. “Why is this night different from all other nights?” Benjy asks, with the traditional Passover refrain aptly applied to this unusual circumstance. Everyone comes together, exhibiting teamwork and genuine interest in the cultural traditions of others. Persian, Moroccan, and Ethiopian Jews explain practices that may not be as familiar as others. The author also puts a contemporary spin on Passover words to make them more relatable to today’s kids. For example, the term “plague” is used to describe the traffic jam that sets this story in motion, and Benjy’s dog is named Matzah, just like the special bread eaten during Passover. The illustrations are playful, and a search-and-find page allows readers to participate in finding the afikoman. The glossary and recipe at the back add extra value. VERDICT A fun-filled, original story worthy of inclusion." —School Library Journal

"Any seder might involve a few glitch­es, but imag­ine if a giant palm tree fell across the road as you made your way to the cel­e­bra­tion, block­ing your path before you even had the chance to sit at the table. In Road­side Seder, a mul­ti­cul­tur­al cast of char­ac­ters en route to Jerusalem expe­ri­ence this unlike­ly obsta­cle. Togeth­er, Anna Levine’s live­ly text and Naa­ma Lahav’s bright­ly col­ored illus­tra­tions tell a sto­ry about inge­nu­ity and coop­er­a­tion with sur­pris­ing results.

The book begins with a typ­i­cal com­plaint about the traf­fic; the illus­tra­tion shows a long line of cars reced­ing into the hori­zon. The scene shifts to the inside of a car, where par­ents, grand­par­ents, and Ben­ji, a boy dressed like Moses, are grow­ing impa­tient. Soon the scene expands to a cross-sec­tion of Israeli soci­ety. Sephardim and Ashke­naz­im, sol­diers, mem­bers of the Ortho­dox com­mu­ni­ty, young and old, are strand­ed by the top­pled palm tree. Grand­ma calls the sit­u­a­tion ​“a plague,” but where­as the Ten Plagues pre­ced­ed the Israelites’ flight to free­dom, the immov­able tree has left every­one stuck where they are. Lahav’s pic­tures cap­ture the frus­tra­tion of the adults. Then Ben­jy and a girl with a skate­board come up with a cre­ative idea. They will hold the seder on the side of the road, set­ting the impro­vised palm-tree table with matzah, charoset, maror, and every­thing else need­ed for the rit­u­al. A two- page spread shows this diverse group of Jews cel­e­brat­ing together.

The text com­bines rhymes and prose, with some sen­tences inside word bub­bles and oth­ers for­mat­ted tra­di­tion­al­ly. This engag­ing pre­sen­ta­tion moves the nar­ra­tive along to its core. The Jew­ish peo­ple, exem­pli­fied in the book’s char­ac­ters, have many dis­tinc­tive cus­toms. An Ethiopi­an woman demon­strates the smash­ing of an old ceram­ic bowl before using a new one for the hol­i­day. A Moroc­can grand­fa­ther pass­es the seder plate over the head of each guest in a ges­ture of bless­ing. Per­sian par­tic­i­pants are seen ​“bop­ping” spring onions over one another’s heads, in play­ful defi­ance of Pharaoh’s cru­el­ty. Yet this col­or­ful vari­ety of tra­di­tions actu­al­ly under­scores the uni­ty of the Jew­ish peo­ple. Togeth­er, under a road sign direct­ing trav­el­ers towards an inac­ces­si­ble Jerusalem, they cheer­ful­ly vary the ide­al des­ti­na­tion for Pesach, as Ben­jy enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly calls for next year’s seder to be a road­side one.

This high­ly rec­om­mend­ed pic­ture book includes an after­word, a glos­sary, and a recipe for charoset." —Jewish Book Council

"Roadside Seder is a lively, joyful story about improvising a seder and making it meaningful for all different kinds of Jewish celebrants.

...We see the great diversity of the crowd: soccer fans dressed in their teams’ gear, a woman with a guitar hung around her shoulders, a girl on her skateboard, young and old Ashkenazi and Mizrahi Jews, all eagerly sharing their food and their different Jewish traditions, and making new friends. Benjy’s grandpa shares his Moroccan tradition of passing the seder plate over guests’ heads as a blessing; an Ethiopian-Israeli woman shatters a piece of pottery as a way of letting go of the past; and the soccer fans recall their Persian grandfather’s ritual of waving green onions over each other’s heads to symbolize Pharoah’s whips, which can’t hurt them now.

Illustrator Naama Lahav conveys the hustle and bustle of the celebration with her colorful and animated illustrations, even asking the reader to search the pictures for the afikomen bag. A nice touch added by Lahav is the road sign above the crowd showing that Jerusalem is straight ahead. Jerusalem is written out in Hebrew, English, and Arabic.

Since the Jewish content is baked right into the story, there is no need for lengthy explanations. It all flows smoothly, and the readers, Jewish and non-Jewish, will delight in the beauty and the joy of the seder. But for those who want to know more, there is back matter with a bit more about the holiday, a glossary, and a recipe for charoset, a perennial Passover favorite." —Sydney Taylor Shmooze