When I First Held You: A Lullaby from Israel

There’s a wonderful quote from one of the great Jewish sages on the final page of this book: “The day you were born is the day God decided that the world could not exist without you.” The lullaby that unfolds on the preceding pages isn’t nearly as vivid, but it’s pretty enough. Mirik Snir’s text croons how all of creation lauded the arrival of a beloved baby: “Rain tapped a song/ Rocks rolled along/ The sea waved with glee/ When I held you close to me.” Eleyor Snir’s vignettes of land, sea and sky have a strong decorative arts feel—there’s a soupçon of endearing visual detail in the animal families that appear (the pink fur of baby monkeys, the toothy grin of a whale pod) intermingled with curvilinear shapes and undulating motifs that convey the sense of the whole world being gently rocked. The human mother and child who appear in the final scene are the least visually interesting inhabitants, but the idea of just how much little ones are treasured—by parents of every shape, size and species—comes through nonetheless. Ages 3–8. (Sept.)