Shlemiel Crooks

A finalist for the Koret International Jewish Book Award

"In the middle of the night on a Thursday, two crooks--onions should grow in their navels--drove their horse and wagon to the saloon of Reb Elias Olschwanger, at the corner of 14th and Carr streets in St. Louis. This didn't happen yesterday. It was 1919." So begins Anna Olswanger's charming folktale Shlemiel Crooks, the story of Reb Elias and the thieves who try to steal his Passover wine.

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.

A modern-day parable, Shlemiel has a music all its own. 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." 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.

Author: Anna Olswanger
Publisher: NewSouth Books
Published: 05/01/2005
Pages: 36
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.93lbs
Size: 10.66h x 8.86w x 0.34d
ISBN: 9781588381651
Audience: Ages 4-8

Accelerated Reader:
Reading Level: 5.3
Point Value: 0.5
Interest Level: Lower Grade
Quiz #/Name: 115039 / Shlemiel Crooks


Award: Sydney Taylor Book Award - Honor Book


Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 03/28/2005 pg. 82
Booklist 05/15/2005 pg. 1660
School Library Journal 06/01/2005 pg. 124
Bulletin of Ctr for Child Bks 07/01/2005 pg. 504
Multicultural Review 12/01/2005 pg. 103

About the Author
Olswanger, Anna: - Anna Olswanger's Shlemiel Crooks (Junebug Books) is a Sydney Taylor Honor Book and PJ Library Book. In 2011 the Kaufman Center premiered a family musical based on Shlemiel Crooks at Merkin Hall in New York. Anna lives in the metro New York City area and is a literary agent with Liza Dawson Associates.Koz, Paula: - Illustrator Paula Goodman Koz was born in Peru, and grew up in Philadelphia, the West Indies, Central America, Pittsburgh, and Riverdale, New York. She settled in Manhattan and enrolled in a printmaking program at the National Academy of Design where Hans Jelinek introduced her to woodcut. She also studied at the New School, and has been a freelance illustrator in New York. She lives in Virginia, with her husband Gabe, daughter Nadia and son Daniel.