Doña Gracia Saved Worlds
by: Boone Goldberg
Illustrated by: Alida Massari
December 5, 2023, Kar-Ben Publishing
24 pages
Like many Jewish women, I know the name Doña Gracia Nasi. I’m vaguely familiar with the fact that she was a Sephardic Jew of note, but I was embarrassingly unaware of the details of her life until this year when a few books featuring her bio sketch appeared on my TBR. By far, the cutest of these books is Doña Gracia Saves Worlds written by Bonni Goldberg and illustrated by Alida Massari, because it is a picture book.
Like most of my picture book reviews, I tried to gather a small flock of children to help me take Doña Gracia Saved Worlds out for a test drive. The littlest among them had some difficulty following that “Doña” is a title and not a name, and that Gracia ages over the course of the book. It became a bit of a Where’s Waldo adventure as she searched for Doña Gracia on every page. She was also a big fan of Doña Gracia’s hats. At the end, she asked to take the book home wit her, which is always a good sign. (Yes, permission was granted. Who can refuse a kid a book?)
The slightly older kids only interrupted the reading once to ask questions, and generally seemed engaged. They had many thoughts about crypto Jews and what life was like in different countries at the time. Plus, they too liked the hats.
As the grown up reader, be prepared for questions and get your voice ready. This isn’t a board book. There’s enough text on the page that smaller kids will interrupt, and bigger ones might want to hear it a few times to parse the different themes. The somewhat muted color scheme suits the story and time period well, and I learned something about a historical figure right along with the kids. Bonus: I also very much enjoyed the hats.
Doña Gracia Saved Worlds is a good book for story time or circle reads. It will be equally useful at home or in a classroom. Discussion from all the kids was lively, and I, the adult, was not bored. Which is always a picture book win.