Afikomen Mambo: A Passover Book Your Kid Will Love

This is a guest post by Nadia Maccabee-Ryaboy, mother and 2nd year medical student.

Reading "Afikomen Mamo!"

There’s something about Passover that makes it a perfect Holiday for small children- – maybe it’s the Holiday’s occupation with story telling, maybe it’s the Haroset that looks like mud but tastes so sweet (a perfect combo for a kid), or the throwing of rubber frogs at the table (everyone does that, right?), but above all else it’s the Passover singing that really can draw kids in.
Whether it’s the counting song “echad mi yodea,” a song that would make Sesame’s Count von Count proud, or “dai dai enu” a song so annoyingly redundant (almost as bad as “100 bottles of beer on the wall”…) that my 2-year-old loves singing the chorus for anyone who will listen, the songs of Passover are what I remember most from seders growing up.
That, and the food, of course.
So, you can imagine my excitement when I saw that the PJ Library had mailed me the book and accompanying CD for Rabbi Joe Black’s “Afikomen Mambo” – a cute illustrated book about kids looking for the afikomen set to a catchy tune. But would my daughter like it? Like it? This book-CD combo is now as beloved to her as jumping in puddles and blowing bubbles in the bath!
If we leave the book laying around and Maya sees it, she’ll come up to me and beg “Afikomen Ma-mo!” until I put the CD on, at which point she’ll sit herself down and page through the accompanying book on her own, wiggling her shoulders in time.
Soon enough, Passover will be transformed from a Holiday about music and mud-like apple-mush to a Holiday where I will advise Maya to think about our history of persecution and those currently enslaved in the world, but until then- – let’s ma-mo!