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A Big Quiet House
It is the man who changes, and the world he perceives is transformed. With a tiny, cluttered house, giggling children, and a snoring wife, one man can't get a good night's sleep. "If only," he thinks, "I had a big quiet house!" He throws off his covers and decides to visit the wise old woman at the edge of the village. Surely she can help him solve his problem and she does, but not without giving him some very unusual advice. The woman convinces the man to fill his house with rambling animals, none of which cure his sleeping problem. Until one day, the man takes the animals back to where they belong, and he welcomes the rhythmic sound of his wife's snoring. This ancient Yiddish folktale proves that quite often, nonsense makes the best sense of all. Susan Greenstein's bold illustrations―white pencil on black surface with watercolor - carry the reader through the warm interiors and peaceful nights of the shtetls of Eastern Europe. This story highlights the importance of perspective. Everyone has problems, however attitude can dramatically affect perception. It is the man who changes, and the world he perceives is transformed.
32 pages, Paperback
First published November 25, 1996
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47 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
January 17, 2019
Great book for pointing out that we should be thankful for what we have.
November 18, 2019
Fantastic story, great folk illustrations, good pace, wise message. one of our favorites
February 20, 2020
Traditional
March 26, 2025
An excellent lesson to learn!
August 19, 2025
Really enjoyed this. Great fable and moral
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February 22, 20262/21/26
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March 1, 2016Title: A Big Quiet House
Author: Heather Forest
Illustrator: Susan Greenstein
Genre: European Folktale
Theme(s): Things aren’t as always as bad as they seem.
Opening line/sentence: There once was a man whose house was very small.
Brief Book Summary: A man thinks that his house is too small and too loud. He wants a bigger, quiet house so he goes to a lady at the end of the street for advice. Her advice is to put his barn animals in his house and it becomes even more loud. He finds this advice strange, but when he takes the barn animals out, he appreciates how quiet his house actually was to begin with.
Professional Recommendation/Review #1: Hazel Rochman (Booklist, Oct. 1, 1996 (Vol. 93, No. 3))
Feathers were flying, the children were crying, the wife was sighing, and the man couldn't sleep." In a rhythmic storytelling voice, Forest gives us a wonderful version of the old Yiddish folktale It Could Always Be Worse. Greenstein's bold, colorful pictures with thick black lines are great for group sharing; they capture the broad farce and the droll characters of the shtetl setting. A man can't sleep in his small crowded house, so he gets up in the middle of the night and asks the wisewoman of the village for help. She suggests he bring a chicken into the house, and then a cow, a horse, a goat, and a sheep. Of course, the nonsense advice creates more and more chaos, and the pictures show the animals filling the space, singing and snorting and noisily pecking. Then the wisewoman tells him to put the animals back in the barn, and suddenly his house is big and quiet. An endnote discusses sources and message, but children will love the nonsense.
Professional Recommendation/Review #2:
Publishers Weekly (Publishers Weekly)
Forest revisits the popular Yiddish folktale that also inspired Margot Zemach's classic It Could Always Be Worse (1976). A poor man who longs for a "big quiet house" where his wife's snoring and his children's giggling will not annoy him consults the wisest woman in the shtetl (most versions cast a rabbi as the advice-giver). On successive visits, she instructs him to bring first a chicken, then a goat, horse, cow, and a sheep inside his house, which of course adds to the din. Finally, when she tells him to remove the noisy animals, the man has a new appreciation for his relatively large and quiet house. Forest hams up her telling with intermittent rhymes and refrains, inviting audience participation with a number of animal noises, but she lacks Zemach's canny wit and expert pacing. Greenstein enhances the story's historical flavor by using watercolor and streaky white pencil on a black surface, resulting in a pleasingly old-fashioned, woodcut-like appearance.
Response to Two Professional Reviews: The second reviewer, believes that the author could have better pacing and more wit when telling the story. However, the reviewer believes the illustrations makes up for it. The first reviewer most just gives a synopsis of the story then goes on by saying children will like the nonsense of it.
Evaluation of Literary Elements: Children will love the silliness/ nonsense in the book, but they will also take a lesson out of it. Repetition throughout the book, the main character keeps repeating he needs “a big quiet house” and he keeps going back to the “the wise woman”. Adding the animals to the pictures, gives the children a visual of how crowded the house gets by the end of the story.
Consideration of Instructional Application: Assign each children an animal that the main character brings into his house and have everyone make their animal sound to see how loud the room gets. Have the children draw a picture of everyone, pets included, that live in their house.
Author: Heather Forest
Illustrator: Susan Greenstein
Genre: European Folktale
Theme(s): Things aren’t as always as bad as they seem.
Opening line/sentence: There once was a man whose house was very small.
Brief Book Summary: A man thinks that his house is too small and too loud. He wants a bigger, quiet house so he goes to a lady at the end of the street for advice. Her advice is to put his barn animals in his house and it becomes even more loud. He finds this advice strange, but when he takes the barn animals out, he appreciates how quiet his house actually was to begin with.
Professional Recommendation/Review #1: Hazel Rochman (Booklist, Oct. 1, 1996 (Vol. 93, No. 3))
Feathers were flying, the children were crying, the wife was sighing, and the man couldn't sleep." In a rhythmic storytelling voice, Forest gives us a wonderful version of the old Yiddish folktale It Could Always Be Worse. Greenstein's bold, colorful pictures with thick black lines are great for group sharing; they capture the broad farce and the droll characters of the shtetl setting. A man can't sleep in his small crowded house, so he gets up in the middle of the night and asks the wisewoman of the village for help. She suggests he bring a chicken into the house, and then a cow, a horse, a goat, and a sheep. Of course, the nonsense advice creates more and more chaos, and the pictures show the animals filling the space, singing and snorting and noisily pecking. Then the wisewoman tells him to put the animals back in the barn, and suddenly his house is big and quiet. An endnote discusses sources and message, but children will love the nonsense.
Professional Recommendation/Review #2:
Publishers Weekly (Publishers Weekly)
Forest revisits the popular Yiddish folktale that also inspired Margot Zemach's classic It Could Always Be Worse (1976). A poor man who longs for a "big quiet house" where his wife's snoring and his children's giggling will not annoy him consults the wisest woman in the shtetl (most versions cast a rabbi as the advice-giver). On successive visits, she instructs him to bring first a chicken, then a goat, horse, cow, and a sheep inside his house, which of course adds to the din. Finally, when she tells him to remove the noisy animals, the man has a new appreciation for his relatively large and quiet house. Forest hams up her telling with intermittent rhymes and refrains, inviting audience participation with a number of animal noises, but she lacks Zemach's canny wit and expert pacing. Greenstein enhances the story's historical flavor by using watercolor and streaky white pencil on a black surface, resulting in a pleasingly old-fashioned, woodcut-like appearance.
Response to Two Professional Reviews: The second reviewer, believes that the author could have better pacing and more wit when telling the story. However, the reviewer believes the illustrations makes up for it. The first reviewer most just gives a synopsis of the story then goes on by saying children will like the nonsense of it.
Evaluation of Literary Elements: Children will love the silliness/ nonsense in the book, but they will also take a lesson out of it. Repetition throughout the book, the main character keeps repeating he needs “a big quiet house” and he keeps going back to the “the wise woman”. Adding the animals to the pictures, gives the children a visual of how crowded the house gets by the end of the story.
Consideration of Instructional Application: Assign each children an animal that the main character brings into his house and have everyone make their animal sound to see how loud the room gets. Have the children draw a picture of everyone, pets included, that live in their house.
March 13, 2015
Forest, Heather. A Big Quiet House; A Yiddish Folktale from Eastern Europe (1996). The retelling of the original folktale is based on a man who has trouble sleeping. His wife snores too much and his children giggle constantly beside that he believes he has a small home. He visits a wise woman, she advices him to take a big, red chicken, a horse, a cow, a goat and a sheep in to his home. He does as he is told and still can’t manage to sleep. He returns to the wise woman, her advice to him is to return the animals back from where they came from. As he returns home he realizes his home is bigger and quieter without the animals. He finally manages to sleep. This book is based on an Eastern Europe folktale and is very informative for children because the story mentions the man saying, “I will stop and count my blessings.” This story teaches children to be grateful. The art is very simply but the color is impeccable. The colors are bright and the pictures are similar to art paintings which exposes children to a different type of art. Parents who want to teach their children to be grateful should read this book to their children. Target audience: Target audience: 4 – 9.
May 7, 2008
(CIP) Unable to stand his overcrowded and noisy home any longer, a man goes to the wise old woman who lives nearby for advice.
(Claudia) A Jewish man in a stetl community needs help: his house is so small, crowded, and noisy. But after taking a collection of farm animals into the house, then putting them all out again, he concludes he is actually living in a big, quiet house. The narrative interspersed with rhyming sections is enjoyable. However, compressing all the action into one night makes the conclusion much less convincing than versions where one animal is added each day. Also, although the illustrations are attractively vivid and colorful, the initial pictures of the interior give such a sense of orderly spaciousness, it’s hard to believe in the man’s distress. I agree with SLJ that “collections that already have [other versions (Zemach, Cole, Hirsch)] can pass on this one.”
(Booklist) “Forest gives us a wonderful version of the old Yiddish folktale … children will love the nonsense.”
(Claudia) A Jewish man in a stetl community needs help: his house is so small, crowded, and noisy. But after taking a collection of farm animals into the house, then putting them all out again, he concludes he is actually living in a big, quiet house. The narrative interspersed with rhyming sections is enjoyable. However, compressing all the action into one night makes the conclusion much less convincing than versions where one animal is added each day. Also, although the illustrations are attractively vivid and colorful, the initial pictures of the interior give such a sense of orderly spaciousness, it’s hard to believe in the man’s distress. I agree with SLJ that “collections that already have [other versions (Zemach, Cole, Hirsch)] can pass on this one.”
(Booklist) “Forest gives us a wonderful version of the old Yiddish folktale … children will love the nonsense.”
September 16, 2015
We read this to complement our middle ages history lesson about Eastern Europe. This folktale comes from the Eastern Europe Yiddish culture and can be found in many different variations. This particular one is a version based on "It Could Always Be Worse" found in A Treasury for Jewish Folklore. The moral of the story: If you look at your everyday problems relative to the big wide worlds, you will oftentimes realize that those problem are much smaller than you think and things can most certainly be worse.
November 23, 2015
GPS: ELAGSE1W1 Write opinion pieces in which they introduce the topic or the name of
the book they are writing about, state an opinion, supply a reason for
the opinion, and provide some sense of closure.
This is a book about a man who learns to appreciate what he already has. It is a good book and it teaches children the lesson to be happy with what they have.
Students will be read the book as a group. They will then write what happened in the book, and tell about something they have taken for granted before.
the book they are writing about, state an opinion, supply a reason for
the opinion, and provide some sense of closure.
This is a book about a man who learns to appreciate what he already has. It is a good book and it teaches children the lesson to be happy with what they have.
Students will be read the book as a group. They will then write what happened in the book, and tell about something they have taken for granted before.
November 23, 2011
This is a great folklore. I would use it in my classroom right before Christmas. I would use to talk about how everyone is always wanting better things and they do not realize what they already have.
December 27, 2024
The original “It’s a Wonderful Life”- until you experience the alternative, life seems pretty miserable. Although, I believe this fable was written for fathers and not for children! Mothers innately know how to sacrifice. But, fathers need to be reminded.
March 8, 2008
the name Giovanni gave to our new house. one of our favorite books. also beautiful artwork and a story with spiritual implications.
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December 10, 2015This folktale is all about appreciating what you have. In the story a man so wrapped up in what he doesn't have, he learns the hard way just how special his house and family really is.
June 20, 2019
Good lesson told in a fun way. Super illustrations.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews