This sto­ry is set in a shtetl in Europe, but its themes — brav­ery, over­com­ing fears, fam­i­ly respon­si­bil­i­ty, and the impor­tance of com­mu­ni­ty — are universal.

Ten-year-old Shmuel wants to help his fam­i­ly, who are poor and depend on one anoth­er to pitch in order to make ends meet. How­ev­er, he is only an inex­pe­ri­enced boy and no one is will­ing to hire him for any kind of work. When elec­tri­cal lines are intro­duced into the vil­lage, Shmuel watch­es with inter­est as new lights are installed in the town square. He helps the elec­tri­cians with the instal­la­tion and pays close atten­tion to what they are doing. He learns much from them as he observes and assists. 

In time, the wires fray and the bulbs burn out. Shmuel is the only per­son in the vil­lage who watched the instal­la­tion so he knows how to do the need­ed repairs but his debil­i­tat­ing fear of heights makes it dif­fi­cult for him to scale the tall poles in order to address the prob­lems. Nev­er­the­less, Shmuel real­izes that the solu­tion to the vil­lage’s elec­tri­cal issue is up to him. He over­comes his fear, learns to climb to the nec­es­sary height, and saves the day. He earns bad­ly need­ed mon­ey as well as the respect and assis­tance of the entire town. Shmuel is a hero who now has a use­ful skill with which he can help him­self and others.

Atmos­pher­ic illus­tra­tions with deep col­ors as well as earth tones accom­pa­ny the text and add depth to a fine read­ing expe­ri­ence. An author’s note by Sheila Baslaw edu­cates read­ers about the Euro­pean Jew­ish shtetls and explains that Shmuel’s sto­ry is based on her father’s real-life experiences.