From our collection: A Maid with a Braid

The summer night is cool The summer night is fine Children be still, Listen close -- it’s time!

The opening lines of Herman Gold's A moyd mit a tsepl farzukht an epl (A Maid with a Braid Tastes an Apple) sets the scene for a short, lavishly illustrated children’s tale. It is a story where the unexpected happens: apples fall from trees and knock shepherds unconscious, and women wander through the forest chasing the songs of birds. It was also something unexpected that led us to this particular volume: among the 15,000 boxes repacked this month at our Holyoke warehouse was one of the book’s original illustrations, on a single piece of sketching paper, by celebrated artist Isaac Lichtenstein.

It’s a good thing we listened to Gold’s advice!

Lichtenstein’s illustrations, with their simple, fluid lines, are the perfect compliment to Gold’s writing. A moyd, a whimsical twist on the Adam and Eve story, tells of a shepherd and a beautiful maid, brought together in the same way that Newton learned of gravity. Nature does the rest. The story ends with their marriage, witnessed by the shepherd’s flock.

Gold, born in Bresk-Litovsk in 1888, was called the “Funny Man” by his compatriots in Di yunge, the avant-garde literary youth movement that flourished in New York in the early 20th century. His other books, like A moyd, contain mainly silly tales for children, but, despite the light touch, each story is a mini-masterpiece of Yiddish prose and verse. Each book is a work of art in itself, employing the skills of the greatest Yiddish illustrators of the time.

To purchase a copy of A moyd mit a tsepl farzukht an epl (A Maid with a Braid Tastes an Apple), email us at orders@bikher.org.

Other titles by Herman Gold: