Raisins and Almonds: A Yiddish Lullaby - Hardcover

Susan Tarcov grew up next to the Bronx Zoo, a great inspiration for writing children's books. She is married, has three children, and lives in Chicago.

Award-winning illustrator Sonia Sánchez paints with both traditional and digital brushes using layers of texture in her work to evoke emotion and movement. Sonia lives in Spain.

"Redheaded Bella hears night noises and heads to her mother, who explains that the source is a little white goat who runs a store under Bella’s bed. The child is intrigued: 'Will he have a red bicycle?' she asks. 'You never know,' Mama says. Returning to her room, Bella enters an enchanted landscape, rendered by Sánchez (Here I Am) in sweeping, pencil-like textures and velvety colors ranging from earthy to radiant. Bella meets three fellow shoppers―a mouse needing furniture and a mezuzah, a rabbit seeking gardening equipment and a kippah, and a wolf who craves pickled herring, bagels and lox, and pastrami―as text by Tarcov (Maya Prays for Rain) becomes a series of incantatory dialogues, with each animal asking about the goat’s inventory and Bella responding, as her mother did, with 'You never know.' Arriving at the goat’s store, the quartet discovers that he sells only raisins and almonds, and the story abruptly stops―readers may even wonder whether the final pages have gone missing. The connection to the titular lullaby is tenuous (even with an explanatory author’s note), but the authors do succeed in conveying what dreaming feels like: marvelously strange and surreally vivid. Ages 3–8." --Publishers Weekly

"Tarcov sets a traditional Eastern European Yiddish folk song in the present day, employing childlike syntax and dialogue to convey the special luxury of a treat of raisins and almonds. A noise awakens young Bella, sending her running to Mama in fear. Mama reassures her that it's only a little white goat that keeps a store under her bed. Bella imagines amazing delights that could be on offer, but Mama says she must see it for herself. So she tentatively sets out on the journey back to her room. She is soon joined by some magical creatures that have wishes of their own. Among other items, a mouse asks if the goat will have a miniature mezuzah for its door. A rabbit wants a kippa with holes for his ears, and a wolf wonders if he could have pickled herring or a pastrami sandwich. When they arrive at Bella's room, the white goat is standing under her bed selling raisins and almonds. Sánchez's colorful double-page-spread illustrations are fanciful and whimsical, playing up the magical elements. It is never stated that Bella's family (all light-skinned) is Jewish, but references to Jewish items and food are essential to the story and illustrations. Targeting young Jewish readers, the author assumes they will understand the meanings of the kippa and the mezuzah and perhaps know the original song. Delightful and delicious." --Kirkus Reviews

"The Yid­dish lul­la­by 'Raisins and Almonds' ('Rozhinkes mit Man­dlen') is a sur­vivor of the lost world of East­ern Euro­pean Jews. Orig­i­nal­ly a poem by Abra­ham Gold­faden that drew on Jew­ish folk­lore, it was first pop­u­lar­ized in his Yid­dish operetta Shu­lamith (1881). The lyrics embody hope for a per­se­cut­ed peo­ple, as well as a vision of pro­tec­tive Jew­ish moth­er­hood. Raisins and Almonds: A Yid­dish Lul­la­by uses this sweet­ly mourn­ful poem as the pre­text for reimag­in­ing a child’s jour­ney to sleep, while intro­duc­ing spe­cif­ic mark­ers of Jew­ish iden­ti­ty to revi­tal­ize the poem’s aura of Yid­dishkeit for a new young audi­ence. The result is a mod­ern classic.

In Goldfaden’s poem, the child car­ries the uni­ver­sal name Yidele (lit­tle Jew), and we only see him through his mother’s desire for a future of secure pros­per­i­ty. With Raisins and Almonds, Susan Tar­cov and Sonia Sánchez cre­ate a new hero­ine in Bel­la, an ener­getic and imag­i­na­tive girl with traces of both Pip­pi Long­stock­ing and Eloise. Fright­ened by a noise under her bed, Bel­la runs to her moth­er who reas­sures her that she has only heard a lit­tle white goat whose 'lit­tle store is there, under your bed.' In the orig­i­nal lul­la­by, the goat is a trav­el­ing mer­chant who sells items such as raisins and almonds, which pre­dict the child’s future liveli­hood. Bel­la asks her moth­er what the goat will sell. Her response, 'You nev­er know. You’ll have to go and see,' is trans­formed by Bel­la into per­mis­sion to cre­ate a won­der­ful vision, one that departs sig­nif­i­cant­ly from the song.

Tar­cov cap­tures the lim­it­less asso­ci­a­tions of child­hood, as Bel­la won­ders if the goat will have a green bicy­cle hel­met or a neck­lace like her Bubbe’s. Oth­er ani­mals accom­pa­ny her on her fan­tas­tic jour­ney, includ­ing a kip­pah-wear­ing rab­bit, a rav­en­ous wolf who craves pick­led her­ring and pas­tra­mi, and a fam­i­ly of mice whose home is pro­tect­ed by a mezuzah. As Bel­la invites the crea­tures along, each one asks her about the pre­vi­ous trav­el com­pan­ion, both excit­ed and skep­ti­cal about the pos­si­bil­i­ties of what they might learn. Bel­la repeats her mother’s phrase, 'You nev­er know,' as she takes over the caregiver’s role of author­i­ty in her invent­ed world. Allu­sions to Jew­ish life, and rhyth­mic rep­e­ti­tion of her mother’s phrase, keep Goldfaden’s poem in the pic­ture as a dis­tant but fruit­ful source.

Sánchez’s images are wild­ly vivid, with broad brush­strokes and col­ors from nature com­bined with minia­tur­ized detail. In one two-page spread a mouse cau­tious­ly looks out of its hole across a field of light­ly sketched blue and green grass­es, and yel­low flow­ers that almost melt into the back­ground. The object of his admi­ra­tion is a com­plete­ly real­ized mouse apart­ment on top of a bureau. One mouse is white and wears glass­es. The rest of his fam­i­ly is grey; they sip from tiny red and white pol­ka dot­ted mugs at a table cov­ered with a del­i­cate yel­low run­ner. Upright books and a ball of yarn form one wall, while a sil­ver meno­rah stands guard over them. The book ends with an equal­ly rich image that brings the sto­ry full cir­cle. The white goat of both Goldfaden’s poem and the mod­ern tale is indeed a suc­cess­ful mer­chant, man­ag­ing a store over­flow­ing with the raisins, almonds, and oth­er deli­cious items which in ear­li­er Jew­ish his­to­ry might have remained unful­filled aspi­ra­tions. Although Bella’s moth­er only appears briefly in the book, she is mem­o­rable, and is as nur­tur­ing as the moth­er in the lul­la­by even as she looks real­is­ti­cal­ly exhaust­ed. There is no father in the bed with her, an inter­est­ing choice that adds anoth­er dimen­sion to her patience.

Raisins and Almonds: A Yid­dish Lul­la­by is high­ly rec­om­mend­ed for chil­dren ages 3 to 8, as well as for any­one who loves the orig­i­nal song, and for fans of dis­tin­guished pic­ture book art. An author’s note describes the song’s ori­gin and a scannable QR code is includ­ed so that read­ers can hear it performed."―Jewish Book Council