The Sign in Mendel's Window

by Mildred Phillips

Book Overview

When Mendel the butcher rents out half of his butcher shop, a stranger takes the space. The deep-thinking tenant isn't what he sems, and he soon brings great troubles to his humble landlord.... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0027746003
• ISBN13: 9780027746006
• Release Date: December 1963
• Publisher: MacMillan Publishing Company
• Length: 30 Pages
• Weight: 0.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 8.3" x 10.3"
• Age Range: 4 to 8 years
• Grade Range: Kindergarten to Grade 3

Customer Reviews

Joyful riddle

The people in Kosnov called it a town, which was like calling a puddle a pond, a leaf a bush, a branch a tree, since the whole place had not more than 12 old wooden buildings clumped together and leaning upon one another to remain upright. The town was so small that when Roshana the wigmaker sneezed, Mishkin the tailor said "God bless you," though he lived a dozen doors away. One day Mendel put a sign in his window that his butcher shop was for rent. The townsfolk worried that Mendel and Molly were moving, or worse, sick. On learning that their neighbors were staying, and would rent only half their shop, they hugged one another in relief. Oddly enough someone actually came to rent it. Tinker's name should have warned Mendel that something was amiss with his new tenant, and his business--thinking--should have set off alarm bells. But since Tinker paid a week's rent in advance, Mendel thought nothing of it. Molly was off visiting cousins in Glitnik. Mendel burst in on Simka to share the joyous news. The shop was divided in two by old bed sheets down the middle. Mendel did his week's counting in a whisper. But Tinker, treating Mendel like an old friend, convinced him to sing out his counting. Tinker very shortly knew how many zlotys were in Mendel's box--and through a hole in the sheets--could see the shelf where Mendel kept it. Tinker borrowed Mendel's horse that weekend and promised to return on Monday. He returned--but with three horses and two policemen--and accused Mendel of stealing his money, by naming the exact sum in Mendel's box. Simka quickly came to the rescue, and whispered something to the policemen, who discovered that the whole town knew both the sum in Mendel's box and where he kept it. Then Molly presented Tinker the thinker with a riddle and a pot full of boiling water. How did that help? Hmmmm. Only the people in Kosnov know that secret, and they live in this charming book. Alyssa A. Lappen