Review: Such a Library!: A Yiddish Folktale Reimagined
Such a Library! A Yiddish Folktale Reimagined by Jill Ross Nadler, illustraed by Esther van den Berg Category: Picture Books Reviewer: Rachel J. Fremmer Just as it says in its subtitle, Such a Library! is a reimagining of the old Yiddish folktale about a man whose house is too crowded. His rabbi’s solution? Make the house even more crowded. Then, when all the additional visitors leave, the house seems spacious by comparison. Here, the librarian takes the place of the rabbi. A little boy, Stevie, complains that just the noise of the computer keys and the voice of the storyteller are too loud. When he uses metaphors (“it’s like a zoo in here!” ;“it’s like a circus in here!”), the punnily named librarian Miss Understood takes him literally, opens an apparently magic book, and releases the denizens of a zoo, a circus and so forth. When they are finally returned to the pages of their book, the boy appreciates the relative silence. This is a charming story and the fact tha...