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Clever Little Tailor (The) by Solomon Simon

Title: Clever Little Tailor (The)

Author: Solomon Simon

Translator: David R. Forman

Illustrator: Yehuda Blum

Publisher: Kinder-Loshn Publications (USA)

Date Published: 2021

Format: Hardback

Genre: Stories

Book Category: Fiction

Age Range: 9-11

Original Title: First published in Yiddish as Dos Kluge Shnayderl, Farlag Matones, USA, 1933

Country of Origin: United States

Clever Little Tailor (The)

by Solomon Simon
Age Range: 9-11

In a small Jewish town in Poland, there lived a poor tailor known as Shnayderl (which means “little tailor”), who eked out a meagre living supporting his family. When robbers attack coachmen on the road to his town, Shnayderl volunteers to drive a merchant’s wagon and devises a clever plan to outwit them. Soon Shnayderl becomes known throughout the land as the ‘Clever Little Tailor’ for his ingenious solutions to a variety of difficult problems that include solving mysteries and defeating all types of criminal activity and even evil giants. He is sought out by powerful people which takes him on a series of adventures far away from home and although he is happy to help, he never stops wanting to return to his family and his quiet life as a tailor.

Deeply rooted in Eastern European Jewish folk tales, Yiddish author Solomon Simon’s charming and amusing collection of nine stories, written in 1933, are now available in English for the first time, translated by his grandson David R. Forman. Learning Yiddish in order to be able to translate his grandfather’s stories, Forman has made his translation accessible and engaging for young readers while still giving a sense of Simon’s original voice.

The Clever Tailor is a bilingual edition in English and Yiddish. The English text appears on the left-facing pages and the Yiddish on the right-hand pages with the book being read from right to left. This clever presentation gives an English audience the experience of Yiddish which is a non-Hebrew language that uses Hebrew letters. Colourful illustrations by Yehuda Blum start each story and there is a ‘Note from the Translator’ at the beginning of the book.

This collection of stories is witty, imaginative and timeless.

Solomon Simon (1895-1970) was born in Belarus and fled to America in 1913 after being conscripted into the Czarist army. He published over thirty books in Yiddish and English, notably his children's books The Wandering Beggar, The Wise Men of Helm, and More Wise Men of Helm. He was also a leading figure of the Sholem Aleichem Folk Institute, a Jewish cultural organisation that operated Yiddish secular schools for children.

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