Book Description
for How Dalia Put a Big Yellow Comforter Inside a Tiny Blue Box by Linda Heller and Stacey Dressen-McQueen
From Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC)
Dalia’s little brother Yossi doesn’t believe her when she tells him there is a big yellow comforter inside the small box she made and decorated at the community center. It’s a tzedakah box, and all week Dalia puts money she earns inside it. By week’s end, she tells Yossi that the box holds a big yellow comforter, a butterfly bush, and a banana cream pie, along with kisses and wishes and hugs. Yossi wants to believe his big sister, but when he rattles the box all he hears are coins. “It’s just a bank,” he says. So Dalia takes Yossi along when she and her class combine the money in all of their tzedakah boxes and go shopping. They buy a big yellow comforter, a butterfly bush, and a banana cream pie, and give them to an elderly woman in their neighborhood, along with their companionship. Linda Heller’s lively story about the Jewish tradition of charity and caring has terrific dialogue and a wonderful sibling relationship. Stacey Dressen McQueen’s warm, colorful illustrations show a multicultural neighborhood and numerous details specific to the Jewish tradition of tzedakah. (Ages 4–7)
CCBC Choices 2012. © Cooperative Children's Book Center, Univ. of Wisconsin - Madison, 2012. Used with permission.