Review: Days of Awe

Days of Awe: Stories for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur

by Eric A. Kimmel, illustrated by Sarah Green

Holiday House, 2025

Category: Middle Grade

Reviewer: Jeanette Brod

 

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If the title Days of Awe: Stories for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and its selection of stories seem familiar, it is because they are. The book is a new edition of an old favorite with all new illustrations. The three stories included represent the important Jewish concepts of Charity, Prayer, and Repentance. The classic retellings remain the same. The fully saturated color pages and evocative new artistic motifs provide new possibilities for engagement with a High Holiday standard.

The first story involves Elijah the Prophet, disguised as an officer posted to a distant province. He leaves Rivka with a very tarnished samovar she is unable to clean. Rivka discovers that the samovar brightens with each act of Charity she performs. Over the next seven years, she and her husband take only what little they need for themselves and give away whatever else they acquire. When Elijah returns, he leaves the samovar with them because their Charity has earned them the right to the good fortune it provides.

Although there are many older versions of the second story, the author has based his on a nineteenth century collection of Jewish legends. The story is about the meaning of prayer. An uneducated shepherd prays in the only way he knows how, purely and from his heart. A scholar overhears him, berates him and lectures him on the many traditional Jewish prayers. The shepherd understands nothing of what the scholar says but no longer prays. He is ashamed. When the shepherd is shown how the angels in Heaven pray, he begins to pray again.

Repentance is a major theme of the Days of Awe and the subject of the third story. Rabbi Eleazar makes a mistake. He cries out at the sight of a deformed beggar. He then asks him for forgiveness. The beggar will not forgive him. It is the Rabbi’s daughter who explains that God has already forgiven the Rabbi. The Rabbi continues to prostrate himself before the beggar so that the beggar can be released from the burden of withholding forgiveness. The beggar forgives Rabbi Eleazar and begins the new year with a clean heart.
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Days of Awe, with its expressive new illustrations, speaks to a contemporary audience who can learn much about Jewish culture and traditions from its timeless tales. The three stories are introduced by front matter that explains facets of Jewish observance during the High Holiday season. The information is a welcome guide for beginning readers as well as those with a slightly more advanced understanding of Jewish practice. The back matter traces the sources of the stories and clarifies the difference between the folklorist and the storyteller. Some of the author's personal history is also included. Though young readers may need the help of a parent or teacher to fully appreciate these stories, there is a lot to enjoy for all ages in the language and art of the retellings.

 

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Reviewer Jeanette Brod currently works in the Children’s Department at the New Milford, CT, Public Library. She has been the Director of Lifelong Learning at Temple Sholom in New Milford, CT, and the Vice-President of the Children’s Book Council in New York City. Jeanette holds a Master's Degree in Comparative Literature from Indiana University, Bloomington. She is the 2018 recipient of the Joseph Korzenik Holocaust Educator Award from the Maurice Greenberg Center at the University of Hartford. Jeanette and her husband, Sasha, are the proud parents of two grown children.