The seven tales in this book had their beginnings in middle-European Jewish folklore and legend—a world where the cruel hardships and wry misunderstandings of everyday life could be offset, as often as not, by wondrous visits from angels and demons. Isaac Bashevis Singer first began to perceive the magical shapes and rustlings of that world of imagination in the years prior to World War I, as a small boy in Poland, listening to his mother's bedtime stories.
Now, in his first book for children, he gives enduring form to all its inhabitants: to its children, its lovers, its scolding wives and hen-pecked husbands, to the amiable fools of Chelm (the fabled town where none but fools dwell), to its devils and goblins, to all the memories that come crowding in from his boyhood.
In each of Maurice Sendak's seventeen pictures, this same world of heavenly visions and tumbledown hamlets, of patient animals and hardworking men is perfectly captured, perfectly portrayed.
Bernard Malamud writes: "I think very highly of I. B. Singer's book of children's stories. They uniquely combine elements of fantasy, comedy, love.... Mr. Singer enriches children's literature."
All children will agree, for in this book Isaac Bashevis Singer and Maurice Sendak have conspired to give them a masterpiece.
—from the dust jacket
‘[A] delightful and distinguished book [of seven tales] from middle European folklore [by the winner of the 1978 Nobel Prize for Literature].’ —BL. 1967 Newbery Honor Book Notable Children's Books of 1940–1970 (ALA) 1966 Fanfare Honor List (The Horn Book) "Best of the Best" Children's Books 1966–1978 (SLJ) Best Illustrated Children's Books of 1966 (NYT) Children's Books of 1966 (Library of Congress) Children's Books of the Year 1966 (CSA)
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