It Could Always Be Worse: A Yiddish folktale retold and with pictures by Margot Zemach

Feeling like you live in a house that is too small? Too many people in a tight space? Life too stressful? Reminiscent of Meshka the Kvetch, this Yiddish tale offers a perspective we can use. A father with these problems runs in desperation to the Rabbi, who tells him to bring some animals into the house. Discover how the resulting chaos actually helps this stressed out father!

(New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1976)

Ox-Cart Man by Donald Hall, pictures by Barbara Cooney

If you want to feel grateful for our modern-day ease, just read this book! The wonderful illustrations help young and old readers alike to glimpse the time and labor involved in living in earlier days. Families relied on each other to survive! No wonder more families stuck together! We see a bag of wool sheared from his sheep in April, and how his wife "wove the wool on a loom from yarn spun at the spinning wheel from sheep sheared in April." We also learn how the daughter helps with the family income by knitting 5 pair of mittens from the sheep's wool, as well. 

With charming photos, this is a book to help grow your gratitude and appreciate how those whose lives we've built upon were so filled with hard work!

(New York: The Viking Press, 1979)

The Tale of Meshka the Kvetch by Carol Chapman, ill. by Arnold Lobel

Meshka is a mother with problems: her son reads too much, her daughter never comes to visit her, her health is not perfect, and her husband built her home TOO small. "Oy vey!" While she complains about her problems, she finds herself (and her son) in quite a pickle. When the rabbi discovers her pinned under the wall of Jericho, he gives her the secret to lifting her burdens: praising the good!

This marvelous story teaches the great power in being positive. It is especially fun if you read it with your best Yiddish accent, which, of course, I am not very good at, but still enjoy attempting! Or if you have a daughter who sometimes smells a bit like pickle juice....

(New York: E.P. Dutton, 1980)

Thank You, Sarah: the Woman Who Saved Thanksgiving, by Laurie Halse Anderson, illustrated by Matt Faulkner

"You think you know everything about Thanksgiving, don't you?"

We found out that we didn't when we found this story! We had no idea about Sarah Hale and the role she played in our American (U.S.) Thanksgiving holiday! She dedicated a major portion of her life to promoting this special day. You will be surprised as you and your child(ren) learn about tenacity from this hidden historical figure who raised her family and the eyebrows of a few U.S. presidents. 

My favorite line is, 

"Never underestimate dainty little ladies."

(New York: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2002)