Sammy Spider's First Bar Mitzvah

K-Gr 3—Sammy, the cute, curious spider in this long-running series, has celebrated all of the Jewish holidays, gone to school with Josh Shapiro, learned about Jewish values, and traveled to Israel. In this installment, he sneaks into Mr. Shapiro's tallit bag (the small, zippered velvet bag he uses to carry his prayer shawl and kippah to synagogue) to attend Josh's cousin Ben's bar mitzvah. When the Shapiros arrive at the synagogue, Sammy crawls out of the bag and into a large bowl of candy just as Mr. Shapiro grabs a handful. Sammy clings to a piece of candy in Mr. Shapiro's pocket and watches the bar mitzvah boy receive his own prayer shawl, open the ark, and chant from the Torah. At the conclusion of the service, everyone throws the candy at Ben so that he will have "a sweet life filled with Torah and good deeds." Sammy flies through the air with the candy and luckily is picked up by Josh and safely (and miraculously!) returned home to Mrs. Spider. The bright cut-paper illustrations, typical of the series, help to depict a contemporary Jewish synagogue during this important life cycle event. A brief paragraph with additional information is appended.