Butterflies Under Our Hats (Paraclete Books for Children)
Grade 1-4–The author ofGod's Paintbrush(Jewish Lights, 1992) tries her hand at a story set in the old-world town of simpletons made popular through Jewish folklore. Stripped of any of the usual Yiddish-tinged humor or sense of place, the story revolves around the human desire for luck and need for hope. The plot is simple. After searching everywhere, the people of Chelm despair of ever finding any luck. One day a strange, beautiful woman with a purple hat comes to town and tells them that there is something better than luck. She tells them to try to capture hope, in the form of butterflies, under their hats. When they find they cannot, they despair again at their bad luck. But when they look under their hats again, they find that the butterflies have left a faint powder–a trace of hope–and that was all they needed to be happy. The book is clearly meant to serve as a discussion starter about what is important in life, but as a story, it falls a bit flat. The illustrations and design are lovely, especially the bright and appealing oil paintings of butterflies, but this fanciful tale has no roots in any Eastern European village.–Lisa Silverman, Sinai Temple Library, Los AngelesCopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.