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Summary
Summary
One Rosh Hashanah, a boy overhears some chickens planning a strike. They are sick of being used for Kapores, the New Year custom in which people swing a live chicken over their heads, hoping to erase their bad deeds. When all of the chickens run away, the women try to coax them back with grain, the men try to get them back with force, and the rabbi tries to negotiate. Finally the boy pleads, "Without Kapores, I will never be able to make my papa proud." A chicken responds, "Boychick, for this you need a chicken?" This amusing and telling story about wise chickens and foolish villagers will be enjoyed by anyone who has ever wanted to be a better person. adapted by Erica Silverman from a tale by Sholom Aleichem illustrated by Matthew Trueman
Author Notes
Erica Silverman is a children's author who has loved books since she was a child. She said that books inspired her daydreams and fantasies. She discovered the magic of libraries before she could read. Her grandmother took her to the 23rd Street branch of the New York Public Library in Manhattan. This is where she started appreciating the experience of picking out books to take home. Her love for reading lead her to writing. It was her grandmother who told her stories that fed her imagination. She drew on these memories when she wrote Gittel's Hands, Raisel's Riddle, When the Chickens Went on Strike and Sholom's Treasure.
For fourteen years she taught English as a Second Language to adult immigrants believing the acquisition of language is empowering. Her love of reading and writing has led her to yet another career. She earned her Masters in Library and Information Science and has become a librarian. She has always spent a great deal of time in libraries, both to research my books and to find books to read for pleasure. One of her favorites was an East European folk tale called 'The Turnip.' Many years later, the memory of this book inspired her to write Big Pumpkin which made The New York Times Best Seller List in 2013.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
K-Gr 6-Hoping to get a fresh start by performing a New Year's custom that involves swinging a chicken above his head, a young boy realizes he must take responsibility for his behavior when the feathered inhabitants of his Russian-Jewish village refuse to cooperate. A humorous tale with amusing artwork. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Adapting a tale by Sholom Aleichem, Silverman (Raisel's Riddle) transports readers to a shtetl where Aleichem's famous Tevye might have felt at home. The narrator, an unnamed boy, truly wants to be good, but human nature gets in the way. Thank goodness for Rosh Hashanah, he thinks, when he can make Kapores (the custom of swinging a chicken over one's head to take away the bad deeds of the past year). This year the resentful chickens go on strike, a scenario Silverman develops with great glee. The satire intensifies as the villagers attempt to recapture their errant fowl. ("Such heroes!... You really scared those chickens," the women scoff when the men return with beards and coats in tatters, thoroughly routed by the chickens.) But the absurdity of the plot gives way to an eminently rational and even profound resolution, wherein the boy, interrogated by a chicken, realizes that he does not, perhaps, need Kapores to bring honor to himself and his parents. "So you see, customs come and customs go.... I learned this from chickens," the narrator concludes, now an adult looking back. Debut illustrator Trueman does justice to this multi-level story with carefully layered paintings that achieve subtle but tactile dimensions. His human figures bear a likeness to the geometric features of Mitra Modarressi's characters, but their faces are comically askew, their proportions as exaggerated as the fractured logic of Silverman's text dictates. The Rosh Hashanah motif notwithstanding, this wise and funny book might be enjoyed at all times of year, by a wide range of readers. Ages 5-9. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
(Primary) Silverman adapts a tale by Sholom Aleichem, known best for his stories of Tevye the Milkman. A young boy explains the custom of making Kapores--waving a chicken over one's head to get rid of one's sins--and recalls the year the chickens went on strike. The boy believes that he of all people needs to make Kapores for the New Year, struggling as he does to sit still in the prayer house or keep his holiday clothes clean. But in the end he allows the chickens to go free, and the villagers' dire predictions soon fade away. Like Tevye, the boy learns that traditions will come and go, and life goes on just the same. Trueman's comically angry freedom-fighting chickens aptly reflect the humor of the tale. The rich, dark colors of his mixed-media paintings evoke the Old World setting, while the cocked heads and slightly skewed angles suggest the work of another depicter of Russian-Jewish village life, Aleichem's contemporary Marc Chagall. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Silverman adapts a story from Sholom Aleichem featuring Kapores, the old Eastern European Jewish ceremonial custom of twirling a chicken in order to erase one's bad deeds on the last day of Rosh Hashanah. In a poor village, a young boy overhears the chickens plan a strike in rebellion to the Kapores custom, while they chant "No more Kapores!" and walk out of the village. The boy, fearing that without chickens, his bad deeds will remain for the New Year, unsuccessfully tries to warn his papa. When the empty chicken coops are discovered, everyone anticipates catastrophic results. The boy leads the villagers to the meadow where the chickens have congregated and there begins a series of fruitless orders and negotiations to bring the fowl back to the village. The chickens keep to their squawking convictions, convince the boy that good behavior is dependent on inner strength, and strut off to parts unknown, thus ending an old custom without dire consequences. Newcomer Trueman's wonderful mixed-media paintings of ink, pencil, and gouache humorously capture the Eastern European setting and the melodramatic reactions of the villagers. Satirical and absurdly appropriate for this ludicrous and outdated rite. (Folklore. 5-9) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
K-Gr. 3. In this Jewish New Year story, based on a Sholom Aleichem tale, a young boy sneaks away from religious services to spy on a meeting of local chickens. The birds are upset about the tradition of Kapores, a custom involving twirling chickens overhead to symbolically rid a person of bad deeds. Declaring freedom for fowl, the birds go on strike, and not even negotiators can convince them to return. Without the ceremony, the boy despairs that he will ever be good enough to please his father; then, one of the hens gently explains to him that humans can control their own behavior. Trueman's stylistically inventive mixed-media illustrations, rich in earth tones, are visually striking. They juxtapose well with Silverman's understated yet humorous text; both include many nineteenth-century Russian setting details. A perfect choice for holiday read-alouds, this will make a welcome addition to religious collections, especially in libraries where there is a Jewish audience. --Kay Weisman Copyright 2003 Booklist