"Scarlett and Sam: Escape From Egypt, by Eric A. Kimmel, illustrated by Ivica Stenanovic. (Kar-Ben, 2015) is a Passover-themed book that seems to be the first to fill a much-needed niche in Jewish children's literature: the early chapter book for second- and third-grade readers. These children have surely read many volumes of the wildly popular series by Mary Pope Osborne called 'The Magic Treehouse,' so they are familiar with the 'adventurous time-traveling children' plot device. The 'Magic Treehouse' children have spent many afternoons in their treehouse pointing to pictures in books and suddenly being whisked off to exciting places, such as the Amazon rain forest or the land of the dinosaurs. In what is clearly a nod at this genre for Jewish children, twins Scarlett and Sam take an unexpected ride on Grandma Mina's magic carpet (she brought it with her when she emigrated from Iran), and end up in the Egyptian desert watching Hebrew slaves working to build the Pyramids. They manage to team up with Moses, Aaron and Miriam to help free their people, but the story becomes much more complicated than the familiar one they know from the yearly Passover Seder. It's nice to see a publisher take a chance on a Jewish-themed adventure book for this grade level, and this one would make an appropriate Passover gift for eager readers who have graduated from the 'Magic Treehouse series.

' Let's hope for a continued series - Scarlett and Sam could have many more adventures in Jewish history awaiting them." -- Jewish Journal.