A sampling:
* carrying logs back up a hill so that they can roll them down (p. 6)

* (Arithmetic): The rabbi reassures a young man married for 3 months, whose wife has just had a baby, that
- he has lived with her for 3 months,
- she has lived with him for 3 months,
- they have lived with each other for 3 months,
-and 3 + 3 + 3 = 9, the number of months it takes to have a baby. (pp. 18-19)

* Q: Is it the sugar or the stirring that makes tea sweet?
A: The stirring: "you add the sugar so you'll know how long to stir the tea." (p. 22)

* the man in a wagon who carried his heavy bundle in his arms rather than put it into the wagon so that he wouldn't burden the horse pulling the wagon (p. 45)

* when circus people call Pinkhes terrible names, he gets back at them by buying a ticket and not using it (p. 46)

* A shammes tells Pinkhes a riddle: "Who am I? I am my father's son, but I am not my brother." and explains that the answer is, "It's me!" When Pinkhes shares the riddle with his friends, he says the answer is, "The Shammes!" (p. 47-48)

* A Chelmite, who teaches in a nearby town, only comes home on Pesach because every Chanukah (nine months later), his wife has a baby; jus imagine how may children he would have if he came home every week! (p. 52)
* He sends his wife a letter about slippers: "...I want you to send me your slippers. I say your slippers instead of my slippers, because if I said my slippers, you would read my slippers and send me your slippers, . . . ." (pp. 52-3)

* To prevent the shammes from disturbing the snow, he stands on a table carried by four men around the town. (p. 58)

* To help the shammes, who must bang on every house's shutters to call people to services, all the shutters are stored in the synagogue courtyard. (p. 59)

* a brilliant plan to sell holes for bagels fails when no source can be found for the holes (p. 61)

* (Arithmetic): Why 7 + 7 = 11:
Raisela had 4 children before her first husband died.
Reuven also had 4 children before his first wife died.
After Raisela and Reuven married, they had 3 children.
So,
- Raisela has 4 + 3 = 7 children of her own,
- Reuven has 4 + 3 = 7 children of his own,
- and together they have 11 children.
Hence, (4 + 3) + (4 + 3) = 7 + 7 = 11. (pp. 72-73)

* A riddle:
Q: What's green and whistles and hangs on the wall?
A: A herring!
If you were to say that a herring isn't green, why, you could paint it green.
And if you were to say that a herring doesn't hang on a wall, why, you could hang it there.
And, if, finally, you were to complain that herrings don't whistle, simply explain that you added that just to make the riddle hard. (p. 79-80)?

Q: Which is more important, the sun or the moon?
A: The moon. "The moon shines at night when we need the light most, whereas the sun shines during the day when we already have plenty of light." (p. 90)

* When the town's only wheelmaker commits a capital offense, it is decreed that, in order for justice to be done, a cobbler must hang for the crime since there are plenty of cobblers in Chelm. (p. 92-3)

As you might see from the page numbers, there are plenty of other stories in this book about life in Chelm. The above are my favorites. These and more can be found in other books. For example, in Simon Boom gives a wedding, a picture book by Yuri Suhl, water is served at a wedding.

The author notes that Chelm is not the only place inhabited by fools. "Sometimes it's an individual like Jean Sot in France or Silly Jack in England. Sometimes it's an entire town of fools like Schildburg in Germany or Montieri in Italy. For Greeks it's Abdera; for the English, Gotham; and for the Jews it's Chelm." (p. 100)

Chelm is also a real town in Poland. "The first Jewish settlers had arrived there almost a thousand years ago. They came to work in the logging and lumber business . . . . Less than fifty years ago (1940) there were fifteen thousand Jews living in Chelm, almost half of the population, but today, among its seventy thousand inhabitants, there are none, absolutely none. They have all disappeared. Most were brutally murdered at the killing camp called Sobibor, located only thirty miles to the northeast. The few that did survive have long ago moved on to new lives elsewhere." (p. 105) ( )

NO OF PAGES: 102 SUB CAT I: Children's Resources SUB CAT II: Fiction SUB CAT III: DESCRIPTION: 13 captivating children's stories including: A Beginning; The Shul; The Rabbi; Oyzar the Scholar; The Mikva; Pinkhes the Peddler; Yossel and Sossel; Berish the Shammes; A Celebration; The Inn of the Stolen Moon; Elders and Riddlers; The Feather Merchants; The Council of the Seven Sages.NOTES: SUBTITLE: & Other Tales of the Fools of Chelm