The Schlemiel Kids Save the Moon

“Full of folks so silly that they think they are the wisest people in the world,” per an opening note, folkloric Chelm gets an update in this contemporary variation from Barbakoff and Teplow. Amid the Chelmites, kids Sam and Sarah Schlemiel feel like they’re always trying to make a rescue. One night, their father, soon joined by neighbors, insists that because he sees the moon’s reflection in Chelm’s lake, the moon must be stuck within the water. But the group’s splashy strategies to free it—depicted in slice-of-life cartooning composed largely along a single plane—are all for naught. Following a night of community prayer and debate, Sam and Sarah persuade the adults to visit the lake after daybreak, where the moon’s now-missing reflection prompts the Rebbe to declare that the group’s ascending prayers must have lifted the moon back into place. The lively story doesn’t say what nightfall will wreak, but readers should enjoy the kids’ savvy and the way the Chelmites, portrayed with various abilities and skin tones, stand in for “clueless” adults everywhere. A Yiddish glossary concludes. Ages 4–8. (Apr.)