Terrible, Terrible!: A Folktale Retold

With only limited success, Bernstein updates the classic Yiddish folktale so superbly told in Margot Zemach's It Could Always Be Worse. In this version, an only child objects to cramped quarters after her mother marries a man with four children. Acting on the advice Abigail has solicited from the rabbi (a woman), the family starts storing all their bicycles in the house. When Abigail reports back the next day, telling the rabbi that things are ""terrible, terrible, worse than before,"" the rabbi has the girl bring the family pets inside; after that, she asks the family to invite their ""dozens of cousins"" for an indefinite stay. Finally, when everyone and everything moves back out, the house feels roomy enough. The setup is contemporary, but Abigail's speech might as well be issued by a shtetl-dweller: ""I can't lift my hand to wipe away my tears.... The walls moan, the floors groan, and I'm scared the beams will split."" What begins as folktale devolves into slapstick, especially as the cousins march in (on ""a thousand stomping feet""), and, as the humor stretches, the impact withers. The art doesn't help: garishly colored cartoons portray the family in histrionic poses, the theatrical effect exacerbated by the unchanging perspective in which everyone faces the viewer. In all the shtick, ordinary human feelings get crowded out. All ages. (Sept.)