Today's book is Lemuel the Fool by Myron Uhlberg, with beautiful art by Sonja Lamut. You can read this book online at the Internet Archive.
This is a retelling of a traditional folktale about the "fools" of Chelm, but in this version, the story is set in an unnamed fishing village, and Lemuel makes his journey in a boat as opposed to making his journey by foot, as in the traditional Chelm story. In this version, he also makes a return journey; in the traditional folktale, there is no return journey — which makes sense, as you'll see when you find out just what happens on the journey!
You can also read the traditional story in this children's book: Just Stay Put: A Chelm Story by Gary Clement (who did the illustrations also). In this version, the "wise sage" of Chelm intervenes at the end to tell the traveler what to do.
For a modern storyteller's version of the fool of Chelm's journey, see "A Chelm Story" by Dan Yashinsky, which relates the message of the story to the Alzheimer's patients with whom the storyteller shared the story; you can see if this comment relates to the wisdom you might find, or not, in this famous folktale:
My listeners, including those with Alzheimer’s, laughed and laughed. They, too, are on a journey that has led them away from the familiar. They, too, sometimes don’t know where they really are. And, just like with Shlemiel, their stories have become necessary landmarks and beacons, sources of reassurance and meaning even when other connections have become attenuated and broken. And so every Tuesday we tell each other stories about our many homes, and stories about places so distant there is no map that can still lead us there.
