Zayde Babysits before Passover

In this delightfully amusing story, the reader watches as kindly grandpa, fondly called Zadye in Yiddish, is assigned the role of babysitter to his pixieish granddaughter Ruthie. His assignment is to monitor his granddaughter while mom and grandma prepare for the Passover Seder that evening. His list includes involving his granddaughter in finger-painting, some grocery shopping, going to the playground to release Ruthie’s energy, playing at home for the same reason, having lunch, taking a nap, and bathing Ruthie. The instructions are followed, but the results are unusual, comically different from the intentions. Paints spreading a mess and smearing all over, grocery shopping finds Zayde being wheeled in the grocery cart, gramps goes down the sliding path in the park, overeating occurs at lunch, Ruthie watches her Zayde nap, and Ruthie’s bath ends up in a room full of suds. But finally, the family sits down to the happy Seder service and all goes well. Ruthie invites her Zayde to babysit with her again, to which he happily agrees. The cleverly illustrated versions of this story will have children laughing at the fallibility of their loving, well-intentioned, and very human gramps.