Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1440907 in Books
• Published on: 2006-07-24
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .44" h x 9.50" w x 11.34" l, 1.06 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 40 pages

From School Library Journal
Grade 1-3–In Yiddish, a shlemazel is someone who has no luck. So how can anyone blame Shlemazel for sitting around all day whittling? That is until clever Moshke the tinker gives him a remarkable spoon that changes his life forever. As the skeptical villagers look on, Moshke convinces lazy Shlemazel to take the utensil and search for his luck in a litter-strewn field, under a mountain of newly ground flour, and in the baker's batter. In the process, he plows the field, bags the flour, learns to bake, and meets his future wife. Employing a lively Yiddish cadence, the text is a storyteller's delight, full of humor, hyperbole, and delicious adjectives that make it a pleasure to read aloud. Jewel-toned panoramic watercolors are infused with a joyful folkloric quality well suited to the story. This clever folktale reminds readers that people make their own luck. Pair it with Isaac Bashevis Singer's Shrewd Todie and Lyzer the Miser, another wonderful spoon story, or A Shlemiel and a Shlimazel in Simms Taback's Kibitzers and Fools: Tales My Zayda Told Me (Viking, 2005).–Teri Markson, Los Angeles Public Library
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
PreS-Gr. 2. The Yiddish idiom is just right in this shtetl tale, which Stampler heard from her grandmother, who emigrated to the U.S. from Eastern Europe. "Work-smurk" protests sleepy Shlemazel, who insists he is not lazy but unlucky. After he is tricked into getting out and searching for his luck, he becomes a mensch, finding a better life through hard work and love. The irreverent, down-to-earth idiom takes away heavy messages, and the swirling, folk-art watercolors show the community connections as people hire Shlemazel to dig the soil, grind flour, and make challah with sweet Chaya Massel, who eventually marries him. Who needs luck? He's perfectly happy without it. With its wry twist on the trickster tradition, this story, by the creators of Something for Nothing, (2003), will be great for storytelling alongside other tales from Eastern Eurpean Jewish folklore such as Isaac Bashevis Singer's classic tales, Simms Taback's Joseph Had a Little Overcoat (1999), and Nina Jaffe's The Way Meat Loves Salt (1998). Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review