CHILDREN'S
Released: Sept. 30, 1992
"Excellent source note. (Picture book. 5-9)"
CHILDREN'S
Released: Oct. 1, 1992
"A winning tale, unusually well told and presented. (Folklore/Picture book. 4-8)"
Mendel the peddler and his hard-working wife are so poor they can't buy a single potato for Hanukkah but, miraculously, their daughters fall asleep contented each night after smelling the delicious aroma of latkes emanating from the home of Feivel the merchant.
Read full book review >
CHILDREN'S
Released: Feb. 1, 1993
"A fine addition to any collection of traditional Jewish tales, with a final note about Passover, Elijah, and Peretz. (Folklore/Picture book. 5-10)"
Goldin (Just Enough Is Plenty, 1988) adapts another story about the prophet Elijah visiting a needy, but still charitable, family and providing their Passover feast.
Read full book review >
CHILDREN'S
Released: Oct. 1, 1993
"Nice. (Folklore/Picture book. 5-11)"
When Joseph is born, his grandfather fashions a beautiful blue blanket embroidered with stars.
Read full book review >
CHILDREN'S
Released: June 30, 1994
"Renberg's simplified retelling is straightforward and lively, a good match for Heller's almost raucously colorful illustrations: Her statuesque, classically draped figures, set amid a riot of blossoms in the opulently appointed palace, are the stuff of legend. (Folklore/Picture book. 4-8)"
After King Solomon forgives a bee for stinging him, it returns the favor by identifying the one real flower among a roomful of artificial ones—one of the riddles set the great king by the queen of Sheba.
Read full book review >
CHILDREN'S
Released: Sept. 23, 1994
"Lyrical, comic, cosmic, and deeply touching. (Folklore/Picture book. 4+)"
Gerstein (The Story of May, 1993, etc.) explains that this tale of Moses's surpassingly reluctant and argumentative passage into heaven is from a midrash (``a text using biblical legends to teach a moral lesson'') and that his source was a translation from a 500-year-old Kurdistani manuscript.
Read full book review >
CHILDREN'S
Released: March 1, 1995
"A uniquely funny book. (Picture book/folklore. 4-7)"
A tale about Chelm—a town celebrated in Jewish folklore for the legendary idiocy of its inhabitants.
Read full book review >
CHILDREN'S
Released: March 1, 1996
"These skillfully evoke the images in Jewish illuminated manuscripts and in the paintings of Chagall, providing a match made in heaven for Prose's funny tale. (Picture book/folklore. 5+)"
Prose's first children's book is a humorously understated retelling of a traditional Jewish folktale (a scrupulous author's note provides sources). ``Forty days before a baby is born, the angels in heaven get together and decide whom the baby will marry . . . .
Read full book review >
CHILDREN'S
Released: March 15, 1996
"Arnold's frenetic acrylic illustrations have a rough-hewn woodcut look; the action fairly sails off the page. (Picture book/folklore. 6-10)"
A classic tale about the fool who makes good, while his acquisitive older brothers are left holding the bag.
Read full book review >
CHILDREN'S
Released: April 1, 1996
"Clement's witty illustrations depict Mendel sometimes towering over the village, sometimes in miniature among giants, always slightly dazed. (Picture book/folklore. 4-8)"
Chelm, that village of ``extremely silly'' (as Clement words it) folk, is the setting of a splendidly idiotic tale of Mendel, a lazy man with his head literally in the clouds.
Read full book review >
CHILDREN'S
Released: Oct. 18, 1996
"A fact- filled final note concludes this mesmerizing book. (Picture book/folklore. 6-10)"
The much honored cut-paper master (Sundiata, 1992, etc.) turns his attention to a retelling of the story of the Golem, created by a chief rabbi, Judah Loew, to defend the Jews against the ``Blood Lie'' (that Jews were mixing the blood of Christian children with the flour and water of matzoh) of 16th-century Prague.
Read full book review >
CHILDREN'S
Released: March 10, 2003
"A much-used theme with a clever twist that will bring smiles during each reading. (Picture book/folktale. 4-10)"
Fowles illustrates her first picture book, a magic-pot variant, with luminous watercolors that simply glow on the page like stained glass.
Read full book review >
CHILDREN'S
Released: July 1, 2003
"Satirical and absurdly appropriate for this ludicrous and outdated rite. (Folklore. 5-9)"
Silverman adapts a story from Sholom Aleichem featuring Kapores, the old Eastern European Jewish ceremonial custom of twirling a chicken in order to erase one's bad deeds on the last day of Rosh Hashanah.
Read full book review >
CHILDREN'S
Released: Oct. 1, 2003
"Even younger readers will have no trouble appreciating either the wisdom that Grandpa offers, or the close relationship between him and his devout grandson. (Picture book/folktale. 6-10)"
A heartfelt gesture of gratitude takes a surprising but altogether proper twist in this retold folktale.
Read full book review >
CHILDREN'S
Released: Sept. 1, 2010
"Stampler's touching note demonstrates this layered tale's openness to multiple interpretations. (author's note) (Picture book/folktale. 4-7)"
