After tackling everything from Eid al-Adha to Diwali to Canada Day, the tireless Celebrations in My World series at last takes on these "coming of age ceremonies for young boys and girls of the Jewish religion." Walker describes the relevancy of the event for the adolescent honorees, gives a probably too-quick summary of Judaism (Ruth Bader Ginsburg is pictured as an example), explains how the bat mitzvah ceremony for girls was added in 1922, and goes into the study required for reading Hebrew from the Torah. Design has never been the series' strong suit: type sizes battle for supremacy while "Did You Know?" sidebars ("The Talmud took almost 800 years to write") further crowd the layout. Approachability is high, though, with plenty of shots of normal-looking and often brace-faced teens celebrating their special days, and need-to-know tidbits (that Torah pointer is called a "yad"). A solid, comfy read that concludes with an especially helpful glossary ruch shepatarani, and other relevant words and phrases.

Gr 1-3 It seems that little care has been given to the research, editing, or design of this book. The information is so basic as to be more confusing than informative, and very little of it is focused on the actual practice of bar or bat mitzvah. The awkward writing and errors in grammar and punctuation are reminiscent of a child's school report. The text is printed in an oversize font that implies an audience of beginning readers, but the subject matter is of more interest to preteens. The "Did you know?" pullouts include strangely random statements such as "Coming-of-age ceremonies have been practiced for thousands of years in many cultures. Some ancient traditions involved surviving in the wild." The stock photography is bland, often unattractive, and, in at least one instance, incorrectly captioned. Skip this offering and go with Bert Metter's longer but much more satisfactory Bar Mitzvah, Bat Mitzvah: The Ceremony, the Party, and How the Day Came to Be (Clarion, 2007). Heidi Estrin, Congregation B'nai Israel, Boca Raton, FL