Laurie A. Jacobs

I. Introduction:
A Box of Candles is the story of a young girl’s changing relationship with her neighbor, Mr. Adler, set in the context of the Jewish year. Ruthie dislikes Mr. Adler because he spends too much time with Grandma Gussie, time she would have spent with Ruthie. Ruthie also dislikes Mr. Adler because he has a mustache, wears funny-looking hats, and whistles. But Mr. Adler comes to Ruthie’s rescue when she forgets the tune for the Four Questions on Passover. He also helps her learn to ride a bike, comforts her with a story when thunder bothers her on Shavuot, and invites her to help him in his garden over the summer. By the time Rosh Hashanah comes around, Ruthie is ready to acknowledge that she and Mr. Adler are friends. Their relationship continues to grow as the Shabbat and holiday candles burn. On Purim, Ruthie pushes Mr. Adler to marry Grandma Gussie. Ruthie’s recognition of her own growth is a universal story of childhood, while the particulars of the Jewish year will inform Jewish and non-Jewish readers.

To help teachers use this book in a classroom setting, this guide offers questions for discussion, and suggestions for classroom activities and projects.

II. Questions for discussion:

1. Ruthie does not like Mr. Adler at first, but over the year, she becomes friends with him. Why does Ruthie change her mind about Mr. Adler? Have you ever not liked someone and then changed your mind about that person? Why did you change your mind?

2. In the beginning of the story, Ruthie says she hopes nothing will change by the time she is eight, but in fact there are many changes in Ruthie’s life--she learns to ride a bike, she chants the Four Questions, she helps in a garden, she goes fishing, she learns to skate. What ways have you changed since your last birthday?

3. Ruthie does not mind the thunder and lightening on Shavuot so much when Mr. Adler tells a story. What makes you feel better when you find yourself in a situation you don’t like?

III. Projects and Activities:

1. A year is a very long time to wait when you are seven or eight (or ten or twenty!). Give students a sense of time. This can be done collectively with one box for the classroom or individually with a box for each student. Decide on an appropriate time period for your students to use and the number of candles they will need for that time period. Have students decorate a box or boxes large enough for the correct number of candles. On the inside bottom of the box, have students paste a note in an envelope about what they hope the coming time period will bring. If they light a candle for each Shabbat for the time period, when the box is empty, they can read the note.

2. Create classroom centers for each of the seasons, labeled with the standard calendar months and the Jewish months. At each center, have symbols of the holidays that fall in that season and an activity that reflects what Ruthie did. Include different foods that reflect the seasons and the holidays (try the poppy seed cookie recipe included on this site). Create a calendar for students to stamp as they move from center to center, from season to season, through the year.

3. Ask your students to predict the future and write what they think will happen to Ruthie, Grandma Gussie and Mr. Adler during the next year. What kind of celebrations will Ruthie see before she turns nine?

4. Investigate the topic of calendars. When did calendars begin? What other kinds of calendars are there in the world? Why are they different? For help on this topic, click here.

5. Mr. Adler and Ruthie have very strong sense impressions of the seasons like “the basketful-of -red-tomatoes season” and “the stay-home-and-light-a fire-season.” Ask your students to think up their own seasons.

6. Mr. Adler says that Ruthie’s sukkah “smells of leaves and fruit and flowers.” Ask your students to think about what a sukkah smells like where they live. Ask your students to think about what a sukkah might smell like in another part of the world. Take this one step further and have your students correspond with students in another part of the world and find out what their sukkah smells like.

7. Explore the topic of candles. How are candles made?

8. For older children, explore the idea of the custom of lighting candles on Shabbat and holidays. For an interesting insight, see the short piece by Maggie Anton in Hadassah Magazine, Candles in a New Light.

9. Explore the topic of candlesticks. What kinds of materials have people used to create candlesticks? Ruthie and her mother use individual candlesticks, but Jewish women in other times and places have used hanging lamps and branched candleabrum for Shabbat and holidays. Ask your students to design their own "lights." Include an art project making candlesticks out of paper (for a paper candle--only for decoration, not for lighting!), clay, or glue small clay pots together and decorate.

10. For the younger children, play a game of "uncover the candle." Take a candle, wrap it in many layers of paper, tape and string and have each take a turn unwrapping it. You can do this as a relay race, or as a cooperative game, signalling turns by a timer or the roll of dice. Another game younger children will enjoy is similar to "hot potato:" take one or two candles (or use a cardboard candle with a bright yellow flame) and pass the candle around while music plays. When the music stops, the person holding the candle is out. Try a variation of this: when the music stops, pick a strip of folded paper from a box which will tell the players who is "out"--the choices you will have put in include "the candleholder," the person to the candleholder's right, the person to the candleholder's left, or free (no one is out).