Illustration coming soon

Shlomo's Kite Day

Ages 6-9 | Story and 9 activities

On the first windy day of spring, Shlomo takes his new kite to the park.

It is red with a long yellow tail. Zaidy has helped him build it, with thin wooden sticks and bright paper. Shlomo holds the string tightly and runs across the grass.

The kite bounces behind him. It lifts a little, then flops to the ground.

"Come on," says Shlomo.

He runs again. This time, the kite rises a few feet and spins around. It crashes into a bush.

"Ugh." He pulls it free. A small tear shows in the paper.

His cousin Naftali arrives with a bigger blue kite. "Watch this!" He runs twice and the blue kite soars high above the trees, dancing in the wind.

Shlomo's face falls. His own kite sits in a crumpled heap. He feels his eyes sting. "It doesn't work. It's a bad kite."

Zaidy comes across the grass, leaning on his cane. "Let me see."

He turns the kite over in his hands. "Hm. The tear is small. The string is tied well. But the tail is a bit heavy, and your sticks are too far apart on one side."

"Is it ruined?"

"Not at all. We can fix it."

Zaidy takes out a small roll of tape from his pocket, which he always seems to have. He patches the tear and moves a knot on the string. He shortens the tail by a few inches.

"Try now. But this time, don't run so fast. Wait for the wind to catch it."

Shlomo holds the kite up, facing the breeze. He feels the wind push against it. He lets out some string, step by step. Suddenly, the kite lifts gently, like a bird taking off.

"It's flying!"

The red kite rises and rises, its yellow tail rippling. Shlomo's arms tingle. The string hums in his fingers.

"Look at it!" he shouts.

"You did it," says Zaidy.

"You fixed it."

"I helped. But you kept going."

Naftali comes over. "Cool kite. Mine nearly crashed twice before it went up. I lost one last year in a tree."

"Really? You make it look easy."

"It wasn't, the first time."

They stand side by side, their kites flying beside each other, the red and the blue. The wind blows warm and the clouds roll by. After a while, Shlomo's arms get tired, but he doesn't want to stop.

That night, Shlomo draws a picture of the red kite flying high, with a long yellow tail and a small figure holding the string. Under it, he writes, In my family, we try again.

At home, Zaidy tells him a secret. "When something doesn't work, it doesn't mean you did something wrong. It means you're still learning. Each try teaches you something."

Before they leave, Naftali shows him how to wind the string neatly around a stick so it won't tangle. Shlomo winds his string carefully, round and round, until it looks like a tidy spool.

The next Sunday, he asks, "Zaidy, can we build a bigger one?"