Shlemazel and the Remarkable Spoon of Pohost

Ann Redisch Stampler rooted this picture book deep in Yiddish folk-tale tradition — Shlemazel's name literally means "without luck," and the story's setting in a shtetl neighboring the famous village of Chelm signals readers who know the tradition that something gently comic and warmly moral is coming. The magical spoon that "finds luck" turns out to work only because Shlemazel uses it as a tool for real effort — planting, milling, baking, building — and the message that work creates its own luck lands cleanly without feeling preachy. Jacqueline M. Cohen's brightly hued watercolors bring the bustling village to life, and a Yiddish glossary adds real educational value. The appeal outside Jewish cultural contexts is genuinely narrow, and the plot is simple even by picture-book standards, but within its lane this is charming, well-executed work.