Don't Sneeze at the Wedding

PreS-Gr 2—It's the morning of Aunt Rachel's wedding, and Anna is going to be the flower girl. Everything is not perfect, however, because she wakes up with a sneeze and continues to sneeze as she puts on her fancy dress, her family arrives at the temple, she gets her hair done, and she watches Uncle Matt sign the ketubah. With each sneeze, well-meaning adults offer tips for halting it, which Anna incorporates into a six-step process of touching her lip, wiggling her earlobe, saying "pineapple," tapping her forehead, pinching her nose, and holding her breath. Anna is sneeze-free through each part of the wedding ceremony, until the crowd shouts, "Mazel Tov!" The framing story works well to introduce children to the rituals involved in a Jewish wedding, and the cartoon-style illustrations, suffused with pink, complement the narrative nicely. A good addition to Judaic picture-book collections.—Martha Link Yesowitch, Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, NC