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Sammy Spider
Sammy Spider's First Haggadah
Sammy leads young children through the steps of the Passover seder, telling the story of the Exodus, asking and answering the Four Questions, and sampling the traditional foods. Includes creative readings and songs, as well as colorful paper collage art by Katherine Janus Kahn.
- GenresChildrensPicture Books
32 pages, Paperback
First published December 26, 2006
8 people are currently reading
37 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
June 23, 2025
Every Jewish child's favorite spider and the trademark bright colorful illustrations make "Sammy Spider's First Haggadah" a perfect Haggadah for any young family. Some family Haggadah's have the complete service with suggestions to make it kid-friendly. This Haggadah is a very short seder with all the blessings, questions, story and afikomen. But instead of lots of other prayers and bible quotes, the only extras are fun songs. It is just the right length for short attention spans.
The Passover story
🐸 It has child friendly rendition of the Passover story that is perfect for little ones. I do appreciate that the topic of plagues was handled in a child appropriate manner. It only lists the four kid-friendly "bad things" which happened. The cute song "Things are Bad in Egypt" (sung to the tune of “If You’re Happy and You Know It”) tells about the frogs that jumpity -jump, lice that itchity-itch, locusts that munchity-munch and darkness that people blinkity-blink! It then says that there were even more bad things that happened until finally, Pharaoh told them they were free.
🍷For brevity sake, the kiddush only appears once. Adults may like four cups, but this is aimed at kids who really shouldn't have more than one cup of juice anyway.
👦🏻👦🏻👦🏻👦🏻However , I do wish that it had included a page for "The four sons".
Otherwise, this Haggadah includes it all. This book came highly recommended when I asked a community of Jewish children's authors for preschool suggestions. Now that I have read it, I can certainly see why. This Haggadah is perfect for families with toddlers but will still appeal to older children as well. Many reviews that I looked at said that they have been using the Haggadah for the family seder for years. I received an electronic review copy from Kar-Ben and when I read it to my three year old grandson he was enchanted. I had already purchased Kar-Ben's adorable board book My Family Haggadah which he loves. But after sharing this Haggadah with him, I immediately came home and ordered a print copy which as well as "Sammy Spider's First Passover". Our family had a fantastic seder and I plan to use this Haggadah for many years to come.
This book would be ideal for kids 5-9 and is great for young families and it would be perfect for schools who are teaching Passover or conducting a model seder.
Whereas this Haggadah is perfect for the whole family, parents may also want to consider Kar-Ben's other popular Haggadahs for young children that allow children to follow along with the family that is using one for older guests. "The child who does not know how to ask" will enjoy the board book I mentioned. The older "simple child" will love My Very Own Haggadah: A Seder Service for Young Children. It treats the Seder and the madrig in a similar manner as the Sammy Spider book, but it is coloring book too.
The Passover story
🐸 It has child friendly rendition of the Passover story that is perfect for little ones. I do appreciate that the topic of plagues was handled in a child appropriate manner. It only lists the four kid-friendly "bad things" which happened. The cute song "Things are Bad in Egypt" (sung to the tune of “If You’re Happy and You Know It”) tells about the frogs that jumpity -jump, lice that itchity-itch, locusts that munchity-munch and darkness that people blinkity-blink! It then says that there were even more bad things that happened until finally, Pharaoh told them they were free.
🍷For brevity sake, the kiddush only appears once. Adults may like four cups, but this is aimed at kids who really shouldn't have more than one cup of juice anyway.
👦🏻👦🏻👦🏻👦🏻However , I do wish that it had included a page for "The four sons".
Otherwise, this Haggadah includes it all. This book came highly recommended when I asked a community of Jewish children's authors for preschool suggestions. Now that I have read it, I can certainly see why. This Haggadah is perfect for families with toddlers but will still appeal to older children as well. Many reviews that I looked at said that they have been using the Haggadah for the family seder for years. I received an electronic review copy from Kar-Ben and when I read it to my three year old grandson he was enchanted. I had already purchased Kar-Ben's adorable board book My Family Haggadah which he loves. But after sharing this Haggadah with him, I immediately came home and ordered a print copy which as well as "Sammy Spider's First Passover". Our family had a fantastic seder and I plan to use this Haggadah for many years to come.
This book would be ideal for kids 5-9 and is great for young families and it would be perfect for schools who are teaching Passover or conducting a model seder.
Whereas this Haggadah is perfect for the whole family, parents may also want to consider Kar-Ben's other popular Haggadahs for young children that allow children to follow along with the family that is using one for older guests. "The child who does not know how to ask" will enjoy the board book I mentioned. The older "simple child" will love My Very Own Haggadah: A Seder Service for Young Children. It treats the Seder and the madrig in a similar manner as the Sammy Spider book, but it is coloring book too.
June 15, 2019
In this book, Passover is explained in simple terms that younger children can grasp. The story of the Jews life as slaves in Egypt is explained; Moses’ role in helping the Jews leave Egypt is nicely told. Some purists may not be happy that the author only mentions the first 4 plagues, but it seemed age-appropriate to explain things as the author does.
The illustrations were beautiful. Not being Jewish, I appreciated the basic explanations of the checklist items for the Seder table. The answers to the ‘Four Questions’ were important to the understanding of the meaning of Passover.
The illustrations were beautiful. Not being Jewish, I appreciated the basic explanations of the checklist items for the Seder table. The answers to the ‘Four Questions’ were important to the understanding of the meaning of Passover.
December 12, 2020
A great resource for children learning about Haggadah!
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April 9, 2023tonight was seder and we are still using sammy spider so yes i WILL log it
February 3, 2024
this helped me (a 20-something) understand Passover SO much better than any books I've read. highly recommended.
August 25, 2015
Read with the lovely Weiss family at Passover Seder dinner. 'Seder' means order, and I'm finally getting familiar with the order of things on this time honored Jewish holiday. This books is primarily aimed at young readers but works well as a Haggadah for those unfamiliar with the Exodus story and symbols/reasons for Seder rituals. It tells the story interspersing funny/silly songs to familiar tunes.
I'm left wondering what the other book in the same series, 'Sammy Spider's First Passover', is all about, since this one pretty much covers everything.
I'm left wondering what the other book in the same series, 'Sammy Spider's First Passover', is all about, since this one pretty much covers everything.
April 9, 2010
This book with its bright illustrations and simple, understandable text did a great job as the through-line for a seder geared to the attention of my two-and-a-half-year-old daughter.
April 3, 2014
Outstanding resource for an early childhood group seder. Beautiful illustrations. Formatted to provide the basics of the story and seder experience for this age groups. Very do-able.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews