The Jar of Fools: Eight Hanukkah Stories from Chelm

This is a wonderful book with 8 stories for Hanukkah. Chelm is a town in Poland where God apparently accidentally spilled an entire jar of fools. The irony is that while the people are all fools and almost always wrong, they all have a form of wisdom that can't be denied no matter how hard you try. That foolishness is also the people's charm. How can you deny them? It's fun and there is a lot of humor in this book. I love it and I think my students will too.

My daughters love this book. The stories are fun, smart, and wonderful.

As Eric Kimmel explains in the afterword of another book, he hails from a long line of storytellers. That may be why he is particularly adept at telling these eight delights from Chelm, one for each night of the Festival of Lights.Now Chelm, as you may know, is the mythical town of fools somewhere in Eastern Europe. And every book of Chelm stories offers a different explanation of how they got there, usually involving God, angels--and a giant slip-up. Kimmel's variation ascends to the level of Isaac Bashevis Singer (who also wrote magnificent tales for children), maybe because he retells a Yiddish version of the story.Kimmel has a neat way of taking stories from one tradition and mixing them with others, a feat he pulls off with aplomb in three of these tales. I especially like Berel Dunce and Motke Fool in The Magic Spoon, a Chelm rendition of Stone Soup.He can also magically pull original stories out of thin air, as he does here with three Chelmnick firsts. One, The Soul of the Menorah, introduces us to the menorah at the Grand Synogogue of Chelm, with a blessing from the Seer of Lublin himself.It came to Chelm, many years ago, on the back of a hay wagon, in the shape of a hay fork. Anyone who dared to question that God threw it down from heaven was greeted with the rejoinder, "Dolt! Mooncalf! Since when does a hay fork shine like silver?" Sparks of holiness can be found in the most common, ordinary things, the Rabbi of Lublin told the people of Chelm. "A blind beggar singing in the marketplace might be an angel. An old boot may hold the key to a cosmic riddle. We must constantly search for the hidden sparks so that we can uncover their true holiness."Maybe these Chelmnicks are no fools. After all, they were smart enough to let Kimmel bind their wisdom between the covers of this book, and offer it for sale. Trust me, this book is rich. (But then, I never met a Chelmnick I didn't like.) Alyssa A. Lappen

This is one of those books that is really fun to read to your kids. The stories, one for each of the eight nights of Hanukkah, are cleverly told. Although the fine people of Chelm are often foolish, the lessons learned are always relayed in a wry, humorous way.Kimmel has a way with words and the collection of wisdom represented within this book brings a new meaning to the holiday spirit. Our kids love these stories. Like Kimmel's book Herschel and the Hanukkah Goblins and others, they like to hear these stories year-round.

While the real city of Chelm is in Poland, the Chelm of Jewish legend could be almost anywhere - it is the traditional town of fools. But, as is the case with many fools, they're often wiser than we realize. After all, when dreidel is played in Chelm everyone wins! Caldecott Honoree Kimmel has created eight hilarious Hanukkah stories filled with memorable characters such as Monke Fool, and Feivel Bonehead. Add the smile-provoking, colorful illustrations of Mordicai Gerstein and you have a book that is both spirited and poignant - very much like Hanukkah itself.