My Blog

NPR Names Shlemiel Crooks Recommended Holiday Book

Noted children’s book reviewer Daniel Pinkwater called NewSouth’s Shlemiel Crooks ‚Äúa hilarious book‚Äù during NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday on December 16, 2006. In a conversation with NPR’s Scott Simon, Pinkwater included Shlemiel Crooks as one of only seven of his recommended 2006 holiday books. Listen to the full segment at NPR.org.

Based on a true story, Shlemiel Crooks is an imaginative introduction for young children to the history of Passover, as Pharaoh and a town of Jewish immigrants play tug-of-war with wine made from grapes left over from the exodus from Egypt. In its Yiddish-inflected English, punctuated by amusing curses, young readers hear the language of a Jewish community of another time, while delighting to brilliant illustrations on every page, making this a perfect present for both Passover and Hanukkah. No other children’s book has Pharaoh’s ghost coming back to “pull one over on the Jews,” nosy neighbors making a “shtuss” outside, and a talking horse that sounds like it has a “little indigestion!”

Shlemiel Crooks is a 2006 Sydney Taylor Honor Book and a 2006 Koret International Jewish Book Award Finalist. To order the book, visit www.newsouthbooks.com/shlemielcrooks, Amazon.com, or your favorite local or online book retailer.