David Grossman was awarded the Man Booker Award!

Last week, Israeli author דויד גרוסמן / David Grossman won the prestigious Man Booker International Prize for his book סוס אחד נכנס לבר / A Horse Walks into a Bar.

David Grossman writes books for children, teenagers, and adults. His books have been translated into about 30 languages and he has been awarded many literary prizes.

Here are a few of his books for younger children.

Grossman has a wonderful short series for children called ספורי איתמר /Stories about Itamar.  Itamar is a little red headed boy with extremely good parents,  There is so much love in this series.    Ages 3-7.

 Here are three of the books from the series:

In the book איתמר וכובע הקסמים השחור / Itamar and the Black Magic Hat, Itamar finds a large black hat. His father tells him it's a magic hat. It can change creatures to other creatures but can't change them back to their original form.  Itamar happily changes his father into a monkey but then can't change him back . In the end, Itamar finds an original way to turn his father back to himself.

Itamar would love to get send a letter in the mail and get a response. But he has a huge problem.  He doesn't know how to write.  His father finds a unique way to help him "send" a letter. Read איתמר מכתב / Itamar Letter to find out how his father solves Itamar's problem.

Itamar has a special talent  - he can walk on walls.  He can also jump into the pictures on his walls.  The mother and father lions in his jungle picture look sad.  Their cub has run away and jumped on a train.  With the help of the girl in another picture, Itamar is able to bring the cub back to his parents.  You can hear David Grossman read איתמר מטיל על הקירות /  Itamar Climbs on the Walls and see the animated version of the book.

Have any of your children ever had an imaginary friend?  In החברה הסודית של רחלי / Racheli's Secret Friend, Racheli has an imaginary friend called Hadas.  Hadas is part of the family and joins Racheli and her family for all their activities.  Hadas, of course, sleeps with Racheli every night.  One night Racheli has to say good-night to Hadas at her house.  Her house?  She isn't sleeping with Racheli?  Racheli has a novel idea how to gently let go of her imaginary friend.

Ages 4-6.

Jonathan's father put him on his back and calls out " Who wants a sack of flour?"His father asks quite a few inanimate objects that question.  Jonathan doesn't want any of them to buy him.  Finally, his father asks his mother if she wants to buy a sack of flour.  Jonathan happily agrees to be bought for the price of two kisses.

?מי רוצה שק-קמח/Who Wants a Bag of Flour? will put a smile on everyone's face. Ages  4-6.

I recommend another book about Jonathan in an earlier post.  He was a  very young detective in the book יונתן בלש ממש / Jonathan the Effective Detective.

Tip no. 28

Golda Meir (1898-1978) was the fourth Prime Minister of Israel from 1969 - 1974. But did you know that she was also a librarian in Milwaukee and in Chicago before she made aliyah?