By Cyrisse Jaffee

Three stories highlight the special benefits of friendship — between the old and young, and among children of different backgrounds.

Small Things Mended by Casey W. Robinson. Illustrated by Nancy Whitesides. Rocky Pond Books, 2024.

One More Story, Tata! by Julie Salamon. Pictures by Jill Weber. Astra, 2024

Sharing Shalom by Danielle Sharkan. Illustrated by Selina Alko. Holiday House, 2024.

In Small Things Mended, we meet Cecil, who is lonely and depressed. He lives alone and his once-thriving garden is overgrown. Then one day he hears a “bright, happy sound.” It’s little Lily, from next door, whose pocket watch falls out and breaks when she does a cartwheel in front of Cecil’s house. He decides to try and repair it. When he does, Lily’s smile of gratitude warms his heart. “He had forgotten how much he liked fixing things,” he realizes. The next day, a friend of Lily’s brings him a broken music box.

Cecil’s reputation as a fixer spreads, and he opens up a shop with the motto “small things mended.” Soon he finds himself “surrounded by trinkets and treasures, doodads and thingamajigs.” When Eleanor brings him her bedraggled pet elephant, Daisy, he thinks she just needs her eye fixed (Cecil himself only has one good eye). But, no, Eleanor tells him that it’s not Daisy’s eye, but her heart that’s broken.

Cecil can’t seem to fix Daisy’s heart. “A broken heart,” he tells Eleanor, “is not a small thing.” But when he cleans up and weeds his garden, opening it up to the public as a lunch space, the community turns up. The gathering is jolly, and it turns out that Daisy’s heart needed friends to heal. “I know something about that,” says Cecil.

Although Cecil’s transformation and the reaction of the community is a bit idyllic — has no one noticed Cecil’s situation before? — and too quickly fixed, this is nonetheless a heartwarming story about the importance and power of human connection and community. The metaphor of mending “small things” and a stuffed animal’s broken heart is evocative and adds meaning to the story.

Another lovely and touching story of an intergenerational relationship is One More Story, Tata! Tata is Ruby’s great-grandma, who is very old and lives with Ruby’s grandparents. Little Ruby, a toddler, loves to hear Tata’s stories. Somewhat fanciful, the stories are inspired by Tata’s dreams.

As it turns out, Tata and Ruby have a lot in common. When they go for a walk, Ruby rides in a stroller and Tata is also on wheels — attached to a walker. Sometimes, Ruby pushes her own stroller just like Tata pushes her walker. When they come back, tired out, they both take naps.

Tata also tells stories and shares pictures of those who have come before Ruby: the girls who grew up to be Ruby’s mother and grandmother, and even Tata herself as a little girl. Another important part of visiting Tata is the traditional Jewish custom of Shabbat on Friday. As candles are lit and a song is sung, Tata sneaks a piece of delicious challah to Ruby.

The sweet story comes with little touches of humor and a strong sense of the Jewish culture that has lasted through generations. The illustrations are colorful, lively, and endearing. An author’s note at the end explains more about Shabbat and the real-life person — the author’s mother — whose life mirrors Tata’s.

Another celebration of Jewish culture — and the helping power of friendship — is Sharing Shalom. After school, Leila loves going to her synagogue for Hebrew school. As she learns the Hebrew language and Jewish history, Leila feels “connected to her parents, her aunts and uncles. She was a link in a chain…”

One day, she arrives to find that the synagogue has been vandalized. “Some people think we’re different,” her mother explains, “and they don’t like that.” Leila struggles to understand why being different provokes hatred. She decides that she needs to “blend in” better — by tying back her curls, tucking in her Star of David necklace, and striving “not to be too loud, too bold, or too bright.”

Yet Leila can’t help but notice that everyone in her class is different in his or her own way; her classmates are “full of colors, shapes, and sizes.” When they arrive to check on the synagogue repairs, she and her mother are surprised to see how many people from the community, including Leila’s classmates, have come to help. In a somewhat unrealistic conclusion, Leila links arms with her friends and neighbors “as the rabbi recited a prayer of gratitude,” provided in Hebrew and translated into English: “Blessed are You, Eternal Spirit, who has given us life, sustained us, and allowed us to arrive in this moment.” (A glossary is supplied, but a guide to how to pronounce the Hebrew words in the story would have been helpful.)

The colorful and appealing illustrations, which show children of varying backgrounds and abilities, help tell the story, which is based on the author’s own experiences in 1990, when her synagogue in Skokie, Illinois, was attacked. At the time, she didn’t explore the meaning of the incident with her family or friends — the book is an attempt to remedy that.

There is no mention of current controversies about defining antisemitism or a look at the perspectives of today’s pro-Israel and anti-Israel movements. (The Anti-Defamation League is listed as a resource, as is Hey Alma, which identifies itself as a “feminist Jewish culture site.”) Still, Sharing Shalom serves as a good introduction to a difficult and complex topic, which could be further enhanced by discussions with parents and/or teachers.

Cyrisse Jaffee is a former children’s and YA librarian, children’s book editor, and a creator of educational materials for WGBH. She holds a master’s degree in Library Science from Simmons College and lives in Newton, MA.