A Big Quiet House : A Yiddish Folktale from Eastern Europe
Susan Greenstein Heather Forest
Hardcover
(August House Publishers, Aug. 16, 2005)
With a tiny, cluttered house, giggling children, and a snoring wife, the poor man in this story 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. And she does, but not without giving him some very nonsensical advice. "Bring a chicken into your house, " she suggests. And when that doesn't work, she has him add a goat, a horse, a cow, and a sheep.The ending of the story proves, as so many ancient folktales do, that quite often, nonsense makes the best sense of all.