A Big Quiet House [Paperback]

In a rhythmic storytelling voice, Forest gives us a wonderful version of the old Yiddish folktale It Could Always be Worse. Greensteins bold, colorful pictures with thick black lines are great for group sharing; they capture the broad farce and the droll characters of the shtetl setting....Shelve this with Margot Zemachs classic 1976 version of the story.Greensteins bright, colorful scratchboard illustrations add a delightfully humorous tone to the piece.A poor man who longs for a big quiet house where his wifes snoring and his childrens giggling will not annoy him consults the wisest woman in the shtetl (most versions cast a rabbi as the advice-giver). On successive visits, she instructs him to bring first a chicken, then a goat, horse, cow, and a sheep inside his house, which of course adds to the din. Finally, when she tells him to remove the noisy animals, the man has a new appreciation for his relatively large and quiet house. Forest hams up her telling with intermittent rhymes and refrains, inviting audience participation with a number of animal noises & Greenstein enhances the storys historical flavor by using watercolor and streaky white pencil on a black surface, resulting in a pleasingly old-fashioned, woodcut-like appearance. Ages 4-7.With a tiny, cluttered house, giggling children, and a snoring wife, the poor man can't get a good night's sleep. If only, he thinks, I had a big quiet house! He throws off his covers and goes to visit the wise old woman at the edge of the village. Surely she can help him solve his problem. By the end, we learn that sometimes nonsense makes the best sense of all.It is the man who changes, and the world he perceives is transformed. With a tiny, cluttered house, giggling children, and a snoring wife, one man can't get a good night's sleep. If only, he thinks, I had a big quiet house! He throws off his covers and decides to visit the wise old woman at the edge of the village. Surely she can help him solvel3Ë