The Elijah Door – Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge

Click Here To Purchase This Book From The Blue Marble Children's Bookstore

The Elijah Door; A Passover Tale

Written by Linda Leopold Strauss; illustrated by Alexi Natchev; Holiday House, 2012.  32 pages; $16.95 (hardcover); reading level:  ages 6-10.

Long ago, in a small village that was “sometimes Poland and sometimes Russia,” the Lippas and the Galinskys lived in “side-by-side houses.”  They were fast friends whose children, Rachel Galinsky and David Lippa, would someday marry.  Until the incident involving the two fat geese and the six laying hens (it’s complicated…don’t ask!) turned them into arch enemies.  Enter the rabbi who, along with Rachel and David and the entire village, hatches a plot that brings the two families back together over a very long  Seder table.  Seder supper details (“tracking down crumbs” and, of course the Elijah door) are neatly tucked into this warm, rollicking plot illustrated with folksy prints hand carved on wood and linoleum blocks.  Best of all, the book has arrived just in time for Passover!

The Elijah Door was recently purchased at The Blue Marble Children’s Bookstore by Connie