Sadie Rose Weilerstein

Sadie Rose Weilerstein (born July 28, 1894 – June 23, 1993) was an American author of children's literature. Her works include What the Moon Brought and a series of stories featuring K'Tonton, a boy the size of a thumb who has adventures which feature Jewish holidays and culture. The K'Tonton stories "exemplified both Conservative Jewish and broadly humanistic values." Throughout her life, she was a Zionist, advocating for a Jewish homeland, and an environmentalist.

Weilerstein was born in Rochester, New York. Her parents Bernard and Tillie Rose were Jewish Lithuanian immigrants who kept a kosher home. They had emigrated to America about 10 years before she was born. In America, Bernard owned a factory, and Tillie was involved in Hadassah and the Women's Suffrage movement, working with Susan B. Anthony. Rose Weilerstein had three sisters.

After graduating from the University of Rochester, she was a teacher at the Rochester School for the Deaf. In 1920, she married B. Rueben Weilerstein, a rabbi, and the couple moved to Brooklyn for a time before settling in Atlantic City. The couple had a son and three daughters to whom she would tell stories.

Weilerstein's mother delivered samples of her writing to the publisher Bloch. Her first book, What Danny Did (1928) was published six months later to good reviews. In 1930, she published the first in a series of stories about K'tonton, a boy who is the size of a thumb, in the Jewish magazine Ourlook. The stories were collected into a book, The Adventures of K'tonton, in 1930 which was illustrated by Jeannette Berkowitz.

Dick: the Horse That Kept the Sabbath published in 1955 tells the story of a Jewish family living in the city whose horse, Dick, gets injured and is then taken to a Gentile family in the country where he will not have to walk on the hard pavement. The family promises to allow Dick to continue the Jewish practice of not working on the Sabbath.

...
Wikipedia