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Summary: Tiny but great tale
Review: Sadie Rose Weilerstein, born in 1894, was a leading author of Jewish children's stories for more than 50 years. She introduced the tiny character named K'tonton in the September 1930 issue of Outlook magazine. This story, originally two, also appeared in the first of Weilerstein K'tonton collection, The Adventures of K'tonton (1935), and The Best of K'tonton, a 1980 compendium of 16 stories from three books. Isaac Samuel ben Baruch Reuben--whose first name meant laughter--was a late-born miracle. His mother had wanted a child so badly that in her Sukkot prayers, she promised to love even a child "no bigger than a thumb." Sure enough, before a year had passed, she gave birth to a son. And sure enough, he was no bigger than her thumb. She blanketed him in the flax she had used to wrap an etrog--the Israeli citrus fruit used to celebrate Sukkot--and cradled him in a hand-carved etrog box. It was also on the harvest festival of Sukkot that K'tonton made his first trip to the synagogue. As his father put his etrog carefully into its box to take to shul, K'tonton eagerly asked to join him. "Next year," answered his father, "when you're a little bigger." Like all over-eager boys, K'tonton did something he shouldn't, and climbed inside the etrog box to hide. Once in shul, he couldn't see, so he climbed onto the lulav--the palm branch that is pointed east, west, south and north, to the heavens and to earth as part of the celebration. As K'tonton's father rose with the congregation to chant Hodu l'Adonai ki tov--Praise the Lord for God is good--there was K'tonton singing from atop the lulav, in a high treble that rose above all the other voices. What happened next in this great tale of a tiny boy will light children's eyes. Alyssa A. Lappen
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