TL;DR: If that is true of Canaanite religion, it is arguably true of early Hebrew religion because (arguably) most of the roots of Judaism come from Canaanite religion.

Though my area of expertise is 4th century Alexandria, my undergrad had to do with sociopolitics and religion in the Ancient Near East, specifically Canaan and Israel. Most of this response is off the top of my head, but below I've linked invaluable books that will help you. Academia.edu should have a mess of information on the subject, and if you have access to JSTOR or any other archives through your school, you can find anything you need. This answer is specific to Late Bronze Age, where the Jewish people rose up and the Canaanite people fizzled into the background (except when they joined with the Northern Kingdom and became the Samaritans).

There isn't really much that has to do with child sacrifice (or at least I don't ever recall hearing such things). Canaanite religion was highly divinatory, meaning they had a mess of rituals and spells, but sacrifices generally stuck to animals and plants, aromas that would have pleased the gods (think about Abel's sacrifice in Genesis). Canaan wasn't particularly violent or dominant in the Ancient Near East; in fact, Ugarit, one of the main cities in Ancient Canaan, was wiped out - probably by the Phoenicians - around 1500 BCE. That being said, their religion was more focused on appeasing the gods for fertility and maintaining order than it was on war or violence. The Canaanites were simpler people than, say, the Mesopotamians or the Egyptians - they were pastoralists/nomadic farmers with small cities that were centered around communal religion, trade, and marriage (which was basically trade). Gods worked in tiers, from El, the supreme god, to Baal and other "second tier" gods, usually represented by forces of nature or interaction with the physical world surrounding humans, and finally the lower tier(s), which centered around family gods, ancestral worship, etc.

It is more likely than not that the Hebrew people/religion mostly came from the Canaanites, either before or after their journey into Egypt (I'm not going to get into the Exodus, it's a touchy subject and most claims on the 'Hyksos' are speculative and nonconclusive). That said, Hebrew religion stems from Canaanite religion, and most of the more mythological/explanatory writings in the Hebrew Bible come from Canaanite tradition (along with Mesopotamian and Egyptian, from whom the Canaanites borrowed as well). Yahweh represents both first-tier (supreme) and second-tier (personal/weather-controlling) gods and there is archaeological evidence of Yahweh having a wife early in Judaic culture (Google "Yahweh and his Asherah" - Asherah is the female tree god that was married to Baal). If indeed the Hebrews were trying to distinguish themselves from the Egyptians after a tumultuous period of enslavement/rebellion, they would have wanted to form a religion based on their surroundings - the hillsides/countryside, pastoralism, awkward weather, occasional famine, and humans as more vulnerable and weak than powerful and strong. This is more Canaanite than Egyptian, which had promises of fertility, regulated flooding, a solid source of water, desert climate, and wealth like no other empires in the Late Bronze Age.

Also think about the story in Genesis where Abraham almost sacrifices Isaac. This is a dramatic story which could indicate that people knew child sacrifice was messed up and that it was not a common practice, at least in the Levant.

[This] (http://www.amazon.com/Ancient-Eastern-Relating-Testament-Supplement/dp/0691035032/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1444667568&sr=8-1&keywords=texts+relating+to+bible) book is pretty amazing...it is the motherload; it has literally hundreds of texts that contributed/were written around the same time as the Hebrew Bible. [Mark Smith] (http://www.amazon.com/Early-History-God-Biblical-Resource/dp/080283972X/ref=la_B001H6IMK6_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1444668491&sr=1-1) is kind of the man when it comes to this stuff and has written extensively on it. He and John Huehnergard at the University of Texas are top scholars when it comes to Canaanite religion and Ugaritic (a major language used in Canaan). [This one] (http://www.amazon.com/Stories-Ancient-Canaan-Second-Michael/dp/0664232426/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1444668541&sr=1-3&keywords=canaanite) is a gem as well. [Ugaritic Narrative Poetry] (http://www.amazon.com/Ugaritic-Narrative-Poetry-Marcus/dp/0788503375/ref=pd_sim_14_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=0V0KYY44M1839RJ7D05P&dpID=419F12CQYKL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR106%2C160_) is also an incredible source of Canaanite texts.

I hope this helps! Sorry if I didn't address your question adequately. I will try to remember more and edit as I do, but please check the sources, Academia.edu, and your archives for well-researched, well-written, life-devoted studies on this subject.