The Adventures of Herschel of Ostropol

Kimmel, Eric A. 1998. The Adventures of Herschel of Ostropol. Ill. by Trina Schart Hyman. New York: Holiday House (Reprint Edition). ISBN 978-0823414048.

The Adventures of Herschel of Ostropol is a collection of trickster stories featuring the character Herschel, a poor 19th-century Jewish man living in the Ukraine. Kimmel’s introduction draws a parallel between Hershel and other trickster figures such as Anansi and Coyote. Although I was not familiar with Herschel before I read these stories, now that I have, I think that he could hold his own against either of those other famous characters!

Herschel is a fundamentally kindhearted man who is willing to bilk misers and robbers but who refunds money he swindled from a friend. The tricks he plays are almost all based in the fact of his poverty and his need to provide for himself and his family. Even the rabbi agrees that Hershel is doing a good thing by tricking his miserly uncle into giving money to support the poor. (The uncle’s good deed, his only one, is enough to get him into heaven when he dies.)

The characters are archetypal, as is typical in folklore, from the kind Rabbi Israel to Herschel’s selfish uncle. The cast of recurring characters give some continuity to most of the stories, although one story of Herschel as a child doesn’t fit as well with the rest of the stories of Hershel as an adult.

The black-and-white illustrations by Hyman at the beginning of each story are small and don’t add tremendously to the book, but the facial expressions do offer extra insight into the characters’ emotions.

I think kids have a special affinity for stories in which an underdog succeeds; they feel themselves to be the underdog often enough. I can imagine this book being very popular as a read-aloud. I think it would be fun to use in an assignment in which students rewrite one of the stories, transplanting Herschel’s trick into a setting and characters they make up.

This book is recommended by the Anti-Defamation League’s A World of Difference Institute, which focuses on anti-bias education. In School Library Journal, reviewer Marcia Posner calls these “superbly retold Hershel of Ostropol tales, many of which are unavailable in popular collections.”

Kimmel has also written another book about Herschel, Herschel and the Hanukkah Goblins.

Anti-Defamation League. Recommended Multicultural and Anti-Bias Books for Children. http://www.adl.org/bibliography/book_detail.asp?bookdetail=343. (Accessed January 30, 2007).

Posner, Marcia. Hershel of Ostropol. School Library Journal. Qtd. in Amazon.com. http://www.amazon.ca/Adventures-Hershel-Ostropol-Kimmel/dp/0823412105 (Accessed January 30, 2007).