Posts

Showing posts with the label Caroline Kusin Pritchard

Review: Gitty and Kvetch

Image
Gitty and Kvetch by Caroline Kusin Pritchard, illustrated by Ariel Landy Atheneum (imprint of Simon & Schuster) Category: Picture Books Reviewer: Ruth Horowitz Buy at Bookshop.org Gitty, an ebullient little girl with unruly curls and overalls, gets her name from Gittel, Yiddish for “good.” Kvetch, which means to complain, isn’t usually a name. But it perfectly suits Gitty’s bird pal, who wears an old man’s hat and has a band-aid on his beak, and finds the cloud behind Gitty’s every silver lining. The contrast between the two provides the backbone of Gitty and Kvetch, a picture book about friendship and framing experience. What makes this book Jewish is Kvetch’s use of Yiddish words, defined in an appended glossary. (Other than one “oy vey,” Gitty speaks entirely in English).   The story opens with Gitty producing a swooping, splattering painting. Declaring the picture perfect for her “perfect, purple tree house,” she races off to find Kvetch, who warns that it might not