The stories we tell each other are a treasure that goes largely unremarked. Old stories, handed down and polished through generations, and new stories, freshly minted yesterday at Tim Hortons – these form the glue that keeps our families and communities together. In this country we have more than our share of such treasure as newcomers bring their stories as an invisible, weightless, and gel-free part of their carry-on.

Edmonton writer Debby Waldman’s A Sack Full of Feathers is one of the old stories. Yankel, son of the store owner in the village of Olkinik, is handily placed to hear town news. When the guys get together and complain about their wives, Yankel is there. When Rifke and Freya have an altercation about some fabric, Yankel is there. The trouble is that Yankel is a born gossip, and no sooner does he hear the beginning of a story than he’s out the door spreading it around the community, causing hurt feelings and misunderstandings.

The rabbi steps in with an object lesson for Yankel, giving him the task of placing a feather on the doorstep of each house in the village. The second half of his task is to collect the feathers, which have scattered in the wind, of course. Yankel learns his lesson: “Once you tell a story, you cannot take it back. It goes where it goes, and you cannot say where or how or when. Think of that next time you tell a story, Yankel – and make sure the next story you tell is your own.” The story turns tidily back on itself, biting its own tail, as Yankel realizes that the first story he will tell is indeed his own, the story of a boy who goes looking for feathers.

The world in which the author and illustrator set this story is cozy and benign, a world of primary colours with dots and stripes, bluebirds in trees, contented cats, cottages of the sort young children draw themselves, delicious food with an emphasis on dessert, and the headscarves, brooms, and chickens that signal all the old countries of Eastern Europe. The illustrations and blocks of text are both bordered by a snake-like striped scarf, echoing the tail-biting shape of the story. A note on sources would have been welcome for the folklore-curious (that would be me) but kudos to Orca Book Publishers for telling us the illustrations are acrylic on bristol board. This is useful information for the reviewer, and kids are interested too.