the pictures are cute but the overall feeling in the book just didn't keep my students attention and they seemed to just be disappointed in each ending that the frog got a lollipop

This is really a delightful book. The princess looks like a regular little girl, and she runs into a couple of very straightforward problems (ball in the pond, lost penny) and one very unusual problem (a bird on her daddy's head) with a very silly solution (a froggy on her daddy's head). The three short stories are easy to follow and my daughter has been a fan since she was 2 years old (now she is nearly 4).

This book contains 3 short stories, each starring Princess and her best friend and savior, Froggie. Key phrases are repeated in each story, so my preschooler delights in joining in the story telling. We must have checked this book out from the library at least 10 times in the last year; it's her standby favorite! I like it, too, because it's not very long -- perfect for bedtime.

I bought this book for my son when he was four years old. He is now 18 years old. It was packed away and found when my now seven year old was two years old. Both of them loved it and it has always been a favorite of mine. They love to hear it with a lot of expression, about "the poor unfortunate man." But make sure you put 100% of yourself into even the accent and they will never forget about the poor unfortunate man, which unknown to them has a moral, it will just become part of a strength that they will gain with the love of hearing this story, which they will ask to have read over and over again to them. I also have three girls and a son that is ten years older than my son I first bought this book for many years ago. All of them loved the story, and I bought a copy for each of my two grandchildren. So now my two daughters can pass on the story to their children. It is a wonderful story that started out as a purchase years ago and so appropriately has become a "tradition". Mrs. Symmington

... a poor unfortunate man lived with his mother, his wife, and his six children in a little one-room hut." Everyone was crowded and the hut was full of quarreling or crying constantly. The poor unfortunate man was unhappy, and when he "couldn't stand it any more, he ran to the Rabbi for advice."

The Rabbi gives some rather interesting advice to say in the least. The wisdom of the Rabbi isn't apparent until the end of the story, yet in the meantime the story gets extremely entertaining and downright hilarious to the point of hysterics at times--well for my daughter and me! The illustrations are some of the best I have seen as far as going with the story's context.

I highly recommend this book because it has it all: a funny and entertaining story, hilarious illustrations, and a moral that I believe a child can understand well. I recommend this to young and old alike. If you enjoyed, IF YOU GIVE A PIG A PANCAKE and others like it, I know you will love to share this one too with your child.

Laugh together and Soar!

This timeless tale is set long ago in a crowded city. A peasant seeking spiritual relief from the misery of his struggling household seeks help of the rabbi. The sagacious cleric, in an ironic twist, shows the man that expectations are all relative!

This book is wonderful for reading to individual kids, but it also serves very well in religious education to preschoolers across all faiths. The father's increasing desperation until almost the end is accentuated by a crescendo of pleas to the rabbi, and by the complex but pleasing illustrations.

This book is a compilation of 8 short stories, some based on traditional Jewish tales.
I'd give this book a 1 star rating out of five. Some of the stories are mildly interesting, but most of them are too old( take place in Middle Ages or before) for my liking. There isn't much description either, so you can't envision the picture in your mind the author wants you to. Some of the stories do not have a plot and those that do have unusual endings or don't provide a solution to the problem encountered in the story. I really cannot his book even got a slight chance at possibly maybe being a Newberry Medal nominee.

The funniest translated story in English is in this book. It's "Shrewd Todie and Lyzer the Miser," and it's about silver candlesticks that die after the birth of silver spoons. . .

"In our time, when literature is losing its address and the telling of stories is becoming a forgotten art, children are the best readers," Isaac Bashevis Singer wrote in the three paragraph preface to this 1968 volume. No question, children make fine listeners as well, particularly to these eight stories, which include several Singer originals, as well as some he heard from his mother, who heard them from her mother and grandmother.

Whatever their etymology, the stories all exhibit the themes that run throughout Singer's body of work--spirit, life and the supernatural--all encased in an amazingly agile use of language and humor that glints at the edges.

The book opens with the tale of "Shrewd Todie and Lyzer the Miser." The former had a wife Shaindel and seven children and never earned enough to feed them. He had such poor luck working at trades that he decided if he should make candles, the sun would never set. During an especially cold winter, Shaindel told Todie that if he could not get something to eat, she would go to the Rabbi and get a divorce. "And what will you do with it," he asked her. "Eat it?"

Lyzer, meanwhile, was so stingy that he let his wife bake bread only once every four weeks because stale bread was eaten more slowly than fresh. Rather than feed his goats, he let them feast on the thatched roofs of his neighbors. He preferred to eat his dry bread and borscht on a box so that his upholstered chairs would not wear out. He was not a man to make a loan, preferring to keep his money in his strongbox.

But one day Todie asked to Lyzer to borrow a silver spoon, giving his holy word that he would return it the next day. Not one to doubt holy words, Lyzer loaned the spoon and was pleased the next day when Todie returned it, plus a silver teaspoon, explaining that the spoon had given birth. As Todie was honest, he had to return both. He repeated the exercise twice more.

At last, he came to Lyzer to borrow some silver candlesticks for Shabbat. Lyzer gladly loaned them. Todie sold the candlesticks, bought his wife and seven children a feast and on Sunday, returned to Lyzer to say that his candlesticks had died. "You fool! How can candlesticks die," Lyzer screamed, dragging Todie to the Rabbi. "Did you expect candlesticks to give birth?" the Rabbi asked. "If you accept nonsense that brings you profit, you must also accept nonsense when it brings you loss."

Others stories are less silly. We meet Peziza the imp and her friend Tsirtsur the cricket, who lived together in an old stove and shared stories gay, devilish, frightening, and delightful for telling on long winter nights.
And Rabbi Leib, who managed to escape the evil works of Cunegunde, a witch whose son Bolvan robbed the merchants on the roads and hoarded his stolen goods in a cave rendered invisible by his mother's evil magic.

Still others are sillier. These, not surprisingly, hail from that province of silliness, Chelm. In Singer's Chelm, like all renditions of the town, lived fools. Here, even their monikers are funny--names like Gronam Ox, Dopey Lekisch, Zeinvel Ninny, Shmendrick Numskull and Feyvel Thickwit.

Now Shlemiel of the title also lived in Chelm, and was a businessman, such as it were. He married Mrs. Shlemiel, whose father gave him a dowry, with which he bought a goat in Lublin. But on the way home, he left the goat tethered to a tree while he went into an inn for some brandy, chopped liver and onions and a plate of chicken soup and noodles. The innkeeper (not surprisingly) switched his old blind billy goat for Shlemiel's milking goat. Lots more fun and some Chelmnick wisdom followed.

Each good tale wags another. Poverty grew larger, and naturally her feet grew larger too. Menash had a dream, and yes, Shlemiel finally went to Warsaw. To discover the sense in this nonsense, get this book, and share it with your children, be they young or old. Alyssa A. Lappen

Set this book to a jaunty tune and the words become infectious. Your kids will be reciting it over and over! My kids loved it, as did all the kids in the kindergarten class I work in. I recommend this book highly. It has the same kind of rythmic quality as Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, but with a little more depth.

A fun folksy story about a little hen who has to do all the work. Typical of today's moms. My three year old was fascinated by the detailed illustrations.

I must say, as an adult, I would have never chosen this as book as being appropriate for children if I didn't know better. However, this story was one of the ones I had my mother read to me over and over again when I was a girl. I loved it! So much so that it remained in my memory all these years (I'm 33 now) and am soooo pleased to find that it is not out of print. I'm looking foward to sharing this book with all of the young people in my life.

Perhaps this book isn't suitable for young children, but I think it's wonderful. My mother read this book to my sister and me when we were young and we turned out just fine. Sure, our humors may be a little morbid, but not solely because of this book. And we had no nightmares or ever feared being eaten by an imaginary beast.

This is one of my favorite books of all time and I can still remember most of the words. In fact, to this day (some 14 years later) there are times we'll quote to each other, "Please let me go. Judge, I didn't know, Judge that what I did was against the law, I just said what I saw..." This is a book I have read to countless children, including my niece and I plan on reading it to my own children. The cadence and rhyme of this story catches kid's attention and the moral is clear.

Don't be a wuss, keep it light and your kids will love the book and won't be terrified by the ending. Besides, the Judge gets what he deserves, does he not? Kids love that and they'll find it humorous, if you let them. There is really nothing grisly about the ending. Bear in mind that it's fire you see, not blood.

Again, this is one of my favorite books of all time and a must have for any quality children's library.

This is a story about a person who will not listen to people until he experiences the event for themselves. The judge doesn't listen to people and "judges" them harshly. In the end, he ends up with a harsh judgement himself. Oh well...

I was not very impressed by this book. I felt that the language was, at times, confusing and inappropriate for young readers. The illustrations, while better than anyhting I could do, were not outstanding.

This tells a cute story similar to the traditional version of Rumplestiltskin that is familiar to many of us. The watercolor illustrations are the perfect companion to this text as they are subtle with their opaqueness, yet still tell so much by themselves. Because the book deals with the devil and also some witches, it may not be appropriate for all audiences. Due to the difficulty of the, at times, archaic grammar and length of the text, students shouldn't be expected to read this independently until the 3rd grade, but can have it read to them at a younger age.

Why 3 stars?:
I felt the portrayal of the Devil in this story was an element that could have been eliminated. The character could have been named something else or taken on a different persona. Also, although the book did win a Caldecott Award, it failed to grab my attention, and the attention of the first and second graders that I tested it with.

This book was great for children to open up! The pictures and the story went hand in hand. The pictures had great detail and included a lot of color. I would recommend this book to every child, every parent of a child, and every teacher!