The Strange and Exciting Adventures of Jeremiah Hush as Told for the Benefit of All Persons of Good Sense and Recorded to the Best of His Limited Ability

by Uri Shulevitz

Quiet, serious Jeremiah Hush, a monkey who lives alone, becomes involved in adventures at the Shake'n'Roll Dancin Hole, during a search for a missing umbrella, and while attending a county fair, and though he makes new friends, he learns to appreciate his quiet life.

90 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 1986

About the author

Uri Shulevitz was an American writer and illustrator of children's books. He won the 1969 Caldecott Medal for U.S. picture book illustration, recognizing The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship, an Eastern European fairy tale retold by Arthur Ransome in 1916.

Reviews

[Jolee · Rating 2 out of 5]

An odd little book. :-)

[Joy · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a fun book.

[Salma Nihru · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Sometimes we don't know what's under our own nose—or above it, for that matter," said Winchester Bone. "I once saw a picture of a brain. It looked like a maze. I could easily get lost in the labyrinth of my own brain." (Page 43)

Sometimes, it's necessary to read a fairy tale to help me understand mine, or just to refresh my mind and enlarge my heart. And my selection came to this book.

This book warns me that I have to leave my comfort-zone because much adventures are waiting outside there, including surprises, such as: a mysterious tunnel below my own house, neighbors I never realized I had before, or winning a great competition against the greatest champion of all time (the incomparable, the invincible, the unique one).

Besides, it also teaches me how a simple thing could be a joke that I've never imagined it could be, how a simple problem in life sometimes also needs our particular attention, how's the simple way to be nice with other people (and especially with myself), how a problem could be very easy to be solved yet I always thought it's not that easy, etc.

"I miss home," said Jeremiah Hush.
"But you're home," said Winchester Bone.
"It doesn't feel like home," said Jeremiah Hush.
(Page 42)

[Nic Mcphee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fine, but nothing special. It consists of three largely independent stories in a world of anthropomorphized animals. The first is an Aesop-style morality tale, the second (my fave) is a whodunnit that introduces a bunch of characters, and the third is a detective adventure.

I got this book after being intrigued by some of the illustrations, which we saw in an exhibition at the Eric Carle museum. It turns out that there aren't that many illustrations in this book (3 per story), but it was interesting to see a full book of Shulevitz's work.