Healing the World One Mitzvah at a Time!

 

It's A Mitzvah: Small Deeds With Big Heart

board book

by Suzy Ultman

Rise

an imprint of Penguin Workship

2025

24 pages

ISBN: 9780593751954

It's a Mitzvah! is truly heartwarming and precious--entertaining and fun without being preachy.A smiling yellow heart teaches that a mitzvah is steeped in Jewish tradition and is used for doing good deeds. It reminds people that good deeds bring "kindness, connection, and peace to the world." When you save an earthworm forom the hot sidewalk, its called  takkun olam which means repairing Mitzvahos are important and if more people worldwide would embrace the idea, the world would heal. It takes good humans who are helpful, kind, giving and loving. 

Each type of mitzvah is written in Hebrew and then translated below it. For example: "....give food to people who need it" and is considered "giving righteously, being fair, and thinking about ethics."  

Highly recommended ages 3 and up. Excellent and sturdy book to teach children kindness and working to save their world. A first book of ethics!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

Wordless Picture Book: A Place for Us

 

A Place for Us

by James E. Ransome

Illustrations by the author  

Nancy Paulsen Books 

An Imprint of Penguin Random House, LLC

2025

32 pages

ISBN: 9780593324882

Gorgeous watercolors tell the story of a young boy who attends school and at the end of the day, is picked up by his mother. They go to a fast food restaurant and eat then  walk through what appears to be a big city, and they arrive at the library. It's dark outside by then. They sit at a library table while the boy does his homework. The mother reads a book. They stay at the library until it closes, and the librarian is seen motioning them to the door, 

It appears to be a normal day that any child could have, but the reader learns as they arrive at a park, they are homeless. The boy sleeps on a park bench, his head in his mother's lap. Morning comes, and the boy changes clothes and brushes his teeth using water from a park fountain. His mother walks him to school. As he enters the building, he looks over his shoulder at her--a very powerful last painting that will be etched into the reader's memory. 

Though homeless, the bond between mother and son is unbreakable. No matter how hard things are, they love each other. 

In the author's note, Ransome reports that about half a milllion people are homeless in America, and half of them are children. It is Ransom's hope that when people (and kids) see someone who is homeless, they "pay attentioon, and (to) do the work of finding the much-needed solutions. 

He asks the question: "In a country of vast resources, what is our responsibility to those without access to the basic necessities?" This question is never asked. Politicians have no answers and offer no help. There must be a way to solve this terrible situation. 

A Place for Us is that book that will stick in your mind. It'll make you think and question. Will it make you act to help? 

Highly, highly recommended

Grades 1 and up.