Friday, October 31, 2008

A Book Review and a Memory

We've been listening to All of a Kind Family these past few days. It's the first book of a series by Sydney Taylor about an observant Jewish family in NYC in the early 1900s. It's sweet and fun--the author understands children well.

She's a good teacher, too. In the course of telling a good story, she's explained many Jewish traditions and practices; we recognized most of our Seder meal in her description of Passover. I highly recommend this audio, although you may want to make a cheat sheet early on to keep the children straight. I just looked at the back of the box and found out I had daughters #2 and #3 mixed up.

A special meal in the story set off my memory. As the family celebrates the weekly Sabbath, they all drink some of "the sweet, dark, red wine that Papa made himself."

Instantly I was at a sunny park in California, toasting my brother's marriage with a sip of sweet, dark, red wine (the best I ever tasted) that our Opa had made himself.

That was a happy day, but now I am missing Opa. He was a wonderful grandfather.

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