Empowering Kids: A Book for Kids that Encourages Tikkun Olam - Review of Tell Me a Mitzvah: Little and Big Ways to Repair the World, by Danny Siegel

Tell Me a Mitzvah: Little and Big Ways to Repair the World explains to children how they can perform one of the greatest mitzvot--the mitzvah of charity. The book is written by Danny Siegel, a mitzvah broker who has crisscrossed the country, sharing with audiences in schools, synagogues and community centers stories about ordinary people who discovered that the opportunity to do a mitzvah is right in one's own neighborhood. "Get involved" Siegel preaches to audiences around the country, showing them how.

Now he has taken his experiences with his mitzvah heroes and turned them into a children's book. Teddy, whose story is included in the book, decided to collect pennies from his neighbors for homeless people. When he rolled them up and counted them, he discovered he had collected not a few thousand, but seven million. In November l992, he got 327 New York City schools to harvest pennies for eleven different mitzvah projects worldwide. Ranya, whose story is also included, once discovered 500 pairs of shoes in an old dumpster and took them to a homeless shelter. Now she collects all kinds of things from stores that are about to throw their merchandise away. Jeannie set up a mitzvah crib in her church to collect clothing and supplies for poor children in the city. Gradually, the idea of a "mitzvah crib" spread, and is now being emulated all over the country. Chapter by chapter, Siegel spins real stories about real people whose creative but simple good deeds can be emulated.. And to prove it, each story is followed by a page of What Can I Do, concrete steps that empower children to become mitzvah heroes themselves.