It Could Always Be Worse

Complaining?  Bad attitude?  Frustration?

Whatever is causing the above in your house will be put into perspective after reading It Could Always Be Worse by Margot Zemach.

Zemach retells a Yiddish folktale about a family of eight crammed into a one-room house.  The father can no longer take the chaos, so he goes to the rabbi for advice.

The rabbi gives him some rather unusual advice:  Take his rooster, chickens and goose from the shed and bring them into the house.

You can imagine what happens – it gets worse!  The father continues going to the rabbi, and the rabbi continues giving him strange advice, but the father follows it.

And in the end, he feels quite content in his one-room house.

This book is about having perspective, and being content – good lessons for all of us to learn.