Review: Gitty and Kvetch
Gitty and Kvetch
by Caroline Kusin Pritchard, illustrated by Ariel Landy
Atheneum (imprint of Simon & Schuster)
Category: Picture Books
Reviewer: Ruth Horowitz
Gitty, an ebullient little girl with unruly curls and overalls, gets her
name from Gittel, Yiddish for “good.” Kvetch, which means to complain,
isn’t usually a name. But it perfectly suits Gitty’s bird pal, who
wears an old man’s hat and has a band-aid on his beak, and finds the
cloud behind Gitty’s every silver lining. The contrast between the two
provides the backbone of Gitty and Kvetch, a picture book about
friendship and framing experience. What makes this book Jewish is
Kvetch’s use of Yiddish words, defined in an appended glossary. (Other
than one “oy vey,” Gitty speaks entirely in English).
The story opens with Gitty producing a swooping, splattering painting.
Declaring the picture perfect for her “perfect, purple tree house,” she
races off to find Kvetch, who warns that it might not be the best day to
go to the tree house. Gitty is undaunted, however, and off she merrily
skips, dismissing Kvetch’s every kvetch, and interpreting every
encounter in the best possible light. Her bees are his mosquitos, her
flowers his weeds, her “spectacularly stinky stack” his cow poop. Gitty
even welcomes the gathering clouds—until the ensuing rain storm ruins
her painting. It all ends happily, however, with the friends reversing
roles, and Kvetch convincing Gitty that what makes a day perfect isn’t
sunshine or a painting, but their friendship.
This humorous, heart-warming story is told almost entirely in dialogue.
The multicolor, cartoonish art is as exuberant as Gitty’s over-the-top
personality. I would have liked it if Kvetch had delivered his feel-good
message in feel-good Yiddish (“Kvell”? “Shep nachus”? “Shayna punim”?)
to counter the stereotype that Yiddish – and by extension Judaism –
excels at complaining. That one kvetch notwithstanding, Gitty and Kvetch
is a fun vehicle for introducing another generation to such richly
expressive words as “meshuge,” “shlep,” “tuchus,” “shmuts” and, of
course, “oy vey.”
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