Happy Birthday to Eliezer Ben-Yehudah!

This Thursday, January 19th,  כ"א בטבת, is יום הלשון העברית /Hebrew Language Day in Israel.  Every year Hebrew Language Day is celebrated on כ"א בטבת, the birth date of  Eliezer Ben-Yehudah who revived and modernized the Hebrew language.  Haim  Nachman  Bialik, a very well known Hebrew poet, also had a significant part in reviving the Hebrew language. 

אותיות מתוקות /Sweet Alphabet Letters by  ג'קי לוי  / Jackie Levy introduces us to a little girl named Gal. As Gal's class was about to learn the aleph-bet,  her kindergarten teacher asked each child to tell the class about an old family custom. Gal knows just who to ask!  She'll ask her father who is so old he had lived during the time of the dinosaurs.

 Gal's father told her how Grandfather Rafael would help children learn about the aleph-bet.  The Sefardic custom was to write the aleph bet on a wooden board using honey. Grandfather Rafael would be the one to write the letters on the board and then the children would lick the letters.  Gal's  teacher thought the story was "very sweet".  She then asked all the children to make the letters of their name from anything they liked to eat and bring them to class. What can  Gal do with just two letters in her name? Ages 4-7

Here is a video of the author Jackie Levy reading his book to a group of pre-school children.  It's followed by a television interview with him about the book.





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In the book  מכתב לביאליק / A Letter to Bialik by רינת פרימו  /Rinat Primo,  a girl named Lily learns about one of Bialik's children poems:

קַן צִפּוֹר      

 

קֵן לַצִּפּוֹר

בֵּין הָעֵצִים,

וּבַקֵּן לָהּ

שָׁלֹשׁ בֵּיצִים.

וּבְכָל-בֵּיצָה

– הַס, פֶּן תָּעִיר –

יָשֵׁן לוֹ

אֶפְרוֹחַ זָעִיר.

Her teacher asks the students to learn the poem by heart and draw a picture about the poem.  Learning the poem by heart is no problem but what is a "הספנתעיר"??   Lily can't draw it if she doesn't know what it!  So Lily decides to write the one person who will surely know the answer.  The illustrations add so much to this adorable story.  Ages 7-8.

I love the book ככה זה בעברית / That's the Way It Is in Hebrew by דתיה בן-דור / Datia Ben-Dor. It speaks to me as a non-native  Hebrew speaker.  This book is dedicated to the Hebrew Language.  It highlights in a fun and humorous way all the many grammatical exceptions in Hebrew.  This is a book that the whole family will enjoy!

In my post about series books, I mentioned the historical series מנהרת הזמן/The Time Tunnel.  I have learned quite a bit of Jewish and Israeli history from reading this series.  In the  57th (!) book in the series מלחמות השפות / The Languages Wars, I learned about the    Languages   War of 1913.  Plans for the Technion( Israel's M.I.T.) and its high school specified that the language of instruction would be German.   This caused a public uproar on the part of the  Jewish community of Palestine which supported reviving the Hebrew language.  Who will win - the followers of German or of  Hebrew?  Ages 8-10.

In my last post, I discussed several biographies that דבורה עומר /Devorah Omer wrote.  Her first biography and also one of her most famous books was הבכור לבית אב"י / The First-Born of the house of  A.V.I ( an acronym for Eliezer Ben-Yehudah and Hebrew for "my father"). The first born son refers to Ben-Zion Ben -Yehudah ( later know as Itamar Ben- Avi).

The book introduces us to  Ben-Tzion Ben-Yehudah.   Poor Ben-Zion was the very first Hebrew-speaking child.  What's it like being the first child ( in modern times)to speak only Hebrew?  Read the book to find out about Ben-Zion's unique childhood.  Ages 11-14.





Tip no. 11

 I  believe that Common Sense Media is the best website for evaluating children's books in English. The website provides an extensive evaluation of each book.  It rates each book for positive messages, positive role models, sex, violence, language and more.  Also included is a synopsis of the book and age ratings suggested by children, parents, and the website.  As you can read in the quote from the Common Sense website,  the site rates and reviews a wide selection of children's media. I use this site to evaluate  English children's books that are translated into Hebrew.

"Common Sense Media helps families make smart media choices. We offer the largest, most trusted library of independent age-based and educational ratings and reviews for movies, games, apps, TV shows, websites, books, and music.  Our Parent Concerns and Parent Blog help families understand and navigate the problems and possibilities of raising children in the digital age."