School Library Journal Review
K-Gr 3-Storyteller Jim Weiss lends his voice to this read-along of Uri Shulevitz's 1980 Caldecott Honor Book (FSandG, 1979). After dreaming the same dream three nights in a row, Isaac, an old man who lives in poverty, decides to pay attention. He travels to the capital city to find the treasure his dream has told him is buried there. Upon his arrival, Isaac becomes intimidated by the castle guards and hesitates to look for the treasure. After a few days, one of the guards speaks to Isaac and makes fun of his dream, saying that if he himself paid attention to his dreams, he would travel to the cottage of a poor old man named Isaac to look for a treasure buried under his stove. Isaac travels back home, digs under his stove, and finds the treasure. Weiss is particularly good at the accents, and his soothing voice lends itself well to the narrative portions of the tale. One side of the tape has page-turn signals, so new readers can follow along. This will be a fine addition to audio collections for beginning readers.-Rachel Quenk, Thomas Memorial Library, Cape Elizabeth, ME(c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
As Jacobs tells it in ""The Pedlar of Swaffham"" and two 1971 picture-book versions set forth, a poor man is directed by a dream to London Bridge, where a shopkeeper dismissively recites his dream of a treasure buried in the traveler's own back yard. Here the dreamer is a poor old man named Isaac (Jewish? Shulevitz doesn't say), the setting indefinite (just ""a bridge by the Royal Palace""), and instead of a church the man builds an unspecified ""house of prayer"" in Thanksgiving. What Shulevitz gives up in cultural specificity he apparently seeks to gain in a kind of generalized holiness; his lovely colors glow with what might well be taken for celestial light. But, a child might ask--the house of prayer notwithstanding--what's so holy about going off and back for a treasure? And, visually, what's so interesting about a solitary old man walking through forests and mountains and then back again to his own cramped street? Without the associations of a particular faith or setting, we have only the old man's conclusion: ""Sometimes one must travel far to discover what is near""--a message unlikely to ring bells at the picture-book level. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
