Who Is Nira Harel?

נירה הראל /Nira Harel is a well-known author of over 50 books.  Most of her books are children's books for all ages.  She has also been a teacher and editor of children's books.  She founded and edited the children's magazine פילון/ Little Elephant. But what's most important to me, she is the founder and editor of the website דףדף/ To Browse.  As I wrote in an earlier post, this site about children's literature is my go-to site for book reviews.  It's full of interesting information about children's books, authors and, illustrators.  On the website, you can see a video of Nira Harel reading one of her books.

These are only a few of her many books for pre-schoolers.

!את זה/ This!  is a book for every frustrated parent and toddler who can't communicate.  Noam keeps crying, pointing his finger and saying "This!".  His poor father gives him a ball, then a teddy bear, and some candy.  They are not what he wants.  His father plays the piano, sings and even stands on his head.  Nothing works! In the end, Noam's father accidently figures out what "this" really is.  Ages 2-3.

שפת הסימנים של נעה / Noa's Sign Language is the story of a clever girl named Noa.  Noa can never remember what day of the week it is and is getting quite frustrated.  Then she has a great idea - braids!  She'll start off with one braid on יום ראשון/Sunday and each day add another braid to her hairstyle. By the last day of the week שבת/ Saturday, she'll have seven braids (the Jewish/Israeli week starts on Sunday). Ages 3-5.

 In the book מפתח הלב/The Key to my Heart, Yonatan's father has a key chain full of keys.  There is a key to the front door, the car, the shed, Grandma's house and more.  His father tells him that  Yonatan's picture attached to the key chain is more important than all the keys.  Yonatan loves to hear his father tell him that.  The key chain gets lost. They backtrack trying to find it.  It's found thanks to Yonatan's picture that's attached to the key chain. 

 This book was a family favorite.  Ages 4-5.

You will probably be hungry by the time you finish reading the book  סבא בשל מרק/ Grandfather Cooked Soup.  Sabba (Grandfather) is  lonely and sad.  He decides that he'll cook some soup to cheer himself up.  All of a sudden, one after another three of his grandchildren come to visit and sit down to have soup with him.  Soon the whole neighborhood smells the soup and comes to have a bowl of pea soup.  Sabba is delighted!  Ages 3-5.



I would love your feedback!  Please feel free to comment in the the comment section  at the end of this blog post.  If you are the first to post a comment, click where it says "no comments".





Tip no. 22

האחים גרין

Looking for a second-hand bookstore in Tel-Aviv?  Try האחים גרין/ The Green Brothers on רח' פרישמן 90 /   Frishman St. 90.  The phone number is 03-5238501. It's a small store but it has quite a good selection.  As with any secondhand bookstore, you never know what you will find there!

Happy Family Day!

Family Day  (which used to be called Mother's Day)  in Israel is celebrated on the 30th of Shvat which this year comes out on February 26th.  The date was chosen as a tribute to Henriette Szold, the founder of  Hadassah who passed away on the 30th of Shvat, 1945.  While she herself had no children, she was called "אם הילדים"  / "Mother of the Children" for her work with  Youth Aliyah.

Recently I met Eshkol Navo, one of Israel's most well-known authors of adult fiction.  He is also the author of one children's book אבא של עמליה נוסע לאוסטרליה/ Amalya's Father Travels to Australia. Amalya's father is going to Australia for a whole week! When he goes away, nothing seems like fun anymore.  But soon some very interesting visitors come to visit Amalya.  She has a great time with her guests -The Whipped Cream Man, the Fairy of the Kisses and the Jumping Kangaroo. There are some great visual clues to help figure out who all these guests really are    The week turns out to be more fun than Amalya thought it would be.  And before she knows it, her father is back! I love the illustrations in this book.  Ages 3-6.

Navo gave me some background on the origin of the book.  He was going on a trip and his three-year-old daughter was not happy about it.  So he started telling her a story to make feel better.  Navo was surprised to find that his daughter still wanted to hear more of the story when he came back.  The story developed into אבא של עמליה נוסעת לאוסטרליה.  He picked the name Amalya for the heroine of the book because in Hebrew it rhymes with Australia.   It isn't surprising to learn that when his third daughter was born he and his wife named her  - Amalya.

In my post on biographies/autobiographies, I wrote about Uri Orlev's autobiography of his life during the Holocaust.  רחוקי משפחה / Distant Family continues the story after he makes aliyah in 1945.  His mother died during the Holocaust.  His father survived but is only able to make aliyah from Poland in 1954.   He and his younger brother Yigal come to Pre-State Israel by themselves and are adopted by Kibbutz Genosar.   The brothers get a letter from distant relatives living in Tel-Aviv. The boys are desperate to see their only family but it's not so easy to get from a kibbutz near Tiberias to Tel-Aviv in the 1940's.  Uri and Yigal can't wait and devise a way to get to Tel-Aviv.  The plan doesn't  quite work out as they hoped and they end up at a police station in Petah Tikvah.  Will the boys get to Tel-Aviv to finally see the family they so long to meet? Ages 8-10.






עץ אבא / Father Tree connects us to our extended family.  Hannah wants to climb a tree so her father tells her to plant one.  Hannah is smart enough to know that it takes quite a while until a small tree is large enough for climbing.  While her father rests against the trunk of a young carob tree, Hannah tries climbing several types of trees without much success. Hannah learns that her parents planted the carob tree when she was born. It will take many more years until the tree produces fruit.  Why plant a tree when it takes so many years until you can pick its fruit? The answer comes in a dream that shows Hannah as the mother of a small child and her father as a grey-haired grandfather.   Ages 3-5.




Michal is a tomboy and she is always getting into trouble.  We get to know Michal in הדודה מיכל / Aunt Michal by מאיר שלו /  Meir Shalev.   Michal's much older sister gives birth to twins. Five-year-old Michal is now an aunt.   Her mother tells her that she hopes Michal understands that aunts don't throw eggs or climb trees.  Michal does want to be a good aunt.  She learns how to pinch cheeks and give wet kisses. It's not easy to give up climbing trees and all the other things she likes to do.  She turns six and her parents miss the old wild Michal. They tell her so. After that,  Michal decides to take her nephews for a  walk in the fields.  They all come back filthy, scratched and happy. Ages 4-6.


Tip no. 15

דףדף

DafDaf is an Israeli website for children's literature.  This is an excellent site for information on books, authors, and illustrators. It's my go-to site for reviews of new children's books.

Chag ha-Sigd

Chag ha-Sigd/ חג הסיגד   is an official Israeli holiday. It's a holiday celebrated on כ"ט בחשוון which is 50 days after Yom Kippur. This year it is celebrated on November 30th.  On this day, the Ethiopian Jewish community fasts, go up to Jerusalem and prays.  In the afternoon, the community breaks its fast and celebrates.  This link gives you a feel for how the holiday is celebrated.

Ethiopian Jewry made incredible sacrifices to come to Israel.  They were beaten, robbed, tortured and killed on their journeys through the desert to get to Sudan.  They spent years in refugee camps waiting to make aliyah.  When they finally reached Israel, they went through a tremendous culture shock living in a modern country.   In this video, former Member of Knesset Shlomo Molla tells of his life in Ethiopia and his dangerous, barefoot trek through the Sudanese desert on his way to Israel. 

The book   אבא חום/ Brown Father was written by נעמי שמואל /Naomi Shmuel.  Shmuel made aliyah from England and her husband made aliyah from Ethiopia.  This is Shmuel’s first book which she wrote to help her son Daniel, who was then in a preschool, deal with the fact that his skin color was different from the other children.  It tells the true life story of Daniel’s father who grew up in Ethiopia, where everyone's skin color is brown .  We learn about his life growing up in a village in Ethiopia and his dangerous trek to Israel.  This is a wonderful book that describes Ethiopian Jewry in simple language, accompanied by lovely pictures. Ages  4-8.

נעמי שמואל/ Naomi Shmuel is a writer, anthropologist, and parenting coach.  She has worked for many years with olim from Ethiopia. Shmuel has written books for all ages from pre-schoolers to adults.

ילדת הקשת בענן/ The Rainbow Child is  probably Shmuel’s most well-known  and popular book.  Meskerem grew up in Katzrin and has just moved to Herzliya.  The daughter of an American father and an Ethiopian mother, she is having a difficult adjustment. She misses her friends and family in Katzrin. She  also has to deal with the fact that the children in her class have never met an Ethiopian Jew. In this book, she learns to understand who she is and where she comes from. Ages 9-11.

Here are two other books that I highly recommend-

מבצע אחים/ Operation Brothers  by רונית לוינשטיין-מלץ  /Ronit Levenstein-Meltz tells the amazing true story of a secret Mossad  (the national intelligence agency of Israel) operation to bring Ethiopians Jews to Israel.  This fictionalized story tells of   the heroism of the Ethiopian Jews (code name “The Brothers”) as well as that of  the Mossad agents during the 1980s. This is one of my favorite Israeli children’s books.  It is so well written and researched.  This book grabs you from the very beginning and keeps your interest throughout, even though you know how the story will end.  Ages 10-13.

היום האחרון של פורים/  The Last Day of Purim by the husband and wife team of  יוסי ואסה וירדן ואסה/ Yossi  Vasa and Yarden Vasa.  Yossi, an Ethiopian Jewish boy, is celebrating his first Purim ever.  He wants to dress up as a ninja like his friend Ofir, but how can he convince his parents to spend money on a costume when there is so little money to go around?  The story, written by Yossi Vasa, is based on Yossi's childhood memories. The pictures were drawn by Israeli-born Yarden Vasa.

 היום האחרון של פורים is a graphic novel (a novel in comic- strip format) which presents   visual storytelling at its best.  The drawings add so much to the story of Yossi's family's life in Ethiopia, their trek to Israel and their adjustment to living in Israel.  This is not only a story of the Ethiopian Jewish experience but the story of all olim who move to Israel and must adjust to a new language and culture. Ages 11+.

Tip no. 5  In the last few years,  I’ve seen a huge selection  of  Hebrew board books  become available for babies and toddlers. It’s never too early to get a book in a child’s hand and luckily these board books can take a lot of wear and tear!

This cute boy comes from a long line of book lovers!