Weekly Parsha Books for Kids: How Families Keep It Going
Most families want a parsha moment with the children each week and most do not manage it every week. The obstacle is rarely willingness; it is that nothing arrives on its own and the week fills up.
When it actually happens
Erev Shabbos, before the rush, or at the Shabbos table itself. Both work; what does not work is 'sometime this week'. Pick the slot first and the material second.
Why a book beats a printout
A parsha sheet is read once and recycled. A book gets re-read, and a book with the child in it gets shown to a rebbi, a grandparent and a neighbour. Over a year the pile becomes a shelf they built.
A book a week, without remembering to order it
A Torah Tale subscription sends one personalized book a week, in parsha order, so the right book arrives before the right Shabbos. Every plan delivers weekly; the plan only changes how often you are billed, and it can be cancelled from the dashboard at any time.
Reading with children of different ages
A book is written to the age of the oldest child on the cover, so siblings can share one book without it being too young for one of them. For a wide gap, two books - each child the hero of their own - works better than a compromise.
Stories to start with
- Parshas Bereishis - Hashem creates the world in six days - light and darkness, sky and sea, every creature that swims and flies and walks - and rests on the seventh. Adam and Chava are placed in Gan Eden, and a child watches the whole world come into being one word at a time.
- Parshas Noach - The world has gone crooked, and one man is asked to build a teivah and fill it with pairs of every living thing. Forty days of rain, a dove sent out over the water, and a rainbow that promises it will never happen again.
- Parshas Lech Lecha - Avraham is told to leave everything he knows for a land he has not seen. He goes. Along the way he rescues Lot, argues for the sake of others, and is shown a night sky full of stars and told his children will be as many.
- Parshas Vayeira - Three visitors arrive at Avraham's tent in the heat of the day, and he runs to serve them. Sarah laughs, Sedom burns, and at the end Avraham is asked for the one thing he cannot imagine giving - and Yitzchak is spared.
Questions
- How often do the books arrive?
- One a week on every plan - the plan only changes how often you are billed.
- Can I cancel a parsha subscription?
- Yes, from the dashboard at any time.
- Do siblings need separate books?
- Not necessarily - a book can star more than one child. The story is written to the oldest child on the cover.