Holocaust Day

On Monday, April 24th, Israelis will be commemorating יום השואה/Holocaust Day in Israel.   While the Holocaust is a very difficult concept to explain to children, there is a large selection of books dealing with the subject in Hebrew for children of all ages.  I chose books whose main characters were not in concentration camps or ghettos.  I wanted to give young readers a somewhat different perspective of the Holocaust.

איך למדתי גיוגרפיה/ How I Learned Geography by אורי שולביץ/Uri Shulevitz is the author/illustrator's story of escaping with his family during WWII from Poland to Tashkent, Uzbekistan.  They lived in this exotic, strange country for six years. Uri lived with his family in one tiny room.  He had no books or games and very little food to eat.  One day Uri's father went to the marketplace to buy bread.  Instead of bread, his father came back with a large map of the world.  At first, Uri is furious with his father.  Later, he becomes enchanted by the map and looks at it for hours on end.  Using his imagination, the map transports him to deserts, beaches, mountains and cities.

The book, originally written in English,  is a Caldecott Honor Book.  It was awarded for Shulevitz's amazing illustrations which take us to places all over the world.  This is an excellent book to read to your children when they are young. When they are older, they can read it by themselves.   Ages 5-10 years old.

המחבוא/Hidden is a gentle graphic novel.  The novel which is translated from the French was written by לואיק דווילייה / Loic Dauvillier.  Elsa wakes up to find her grandmother Dounia had a bad dream.  She explains to her grandmother that she will feel better if she tells Elsa about it.   Reluctantly, her grandmother tells her about her experiences growing up as a French Jewish child during the Holocaust.   Dounia's parents hide her when the French police come to their home and take the parents away.  Dounia and a neighbor escape the police and live on a farm until the end of the war.  The neighbors help  Dounia to find her mother who was freed from a concentration camp.  Her father does not return.

 Elsa tells her father the story. This is the first time he has heard about his mother's experiences during the war.

Ages 9 1/2 - 12.

אסתר שנקין/ Esther  (Tika) Shakine wrote and illustrated המסע של תיקה / Tika's Journey.  She uses a combination of illustrations and comics to tell the story of her life during and after the Holocaust. The author begins her story in WW II Hungary when she is five years old.  When the Nazis come to get her family, her parents hide her in the closet.  When Tika finally came out of the closet, no one was there.  She runs out into the street and is found by a priest who knew her family.  Tika stays in a Catholic orphanage for several years until the city was being bombed. Tika spends time with a group of street children until the end of the war. After the war, she meets a Jewish youth director and decides to make aliyah.   The author was on the famous illegal immigration ship "The Exodus" which did not make it to Palestine. In the end, she did make aliyah in May 1948.  Ages 10-12.

הבית מערבות השמש/ Homeward From the Steppes of the Sun by אורי אורלב/Uri Orlev is based on the true story of  Eli Paz-Pozliak.  When Eliyusha (Eli) is five years old, his family flees the invading Germans and makes the long journey east to the remote area of Kazakhstan.   This is a fascinating story of survival from the Steppes of Kazakhstan, to post-war Poland and then to pre-State Israel. At age 11 Eliyusha moves in with his mother, siblings, and step-father to an apartment in Tel-Aviv.  The family is finally united.  Ages 11- 14.

Mrs. Chaya Stone

1924-2000

This blog post is dedicated to the memory of Mrs. Chaya Stone. Mrs. Stone lost her parents, two siblings, her husband and young son during the Holocaust. She and her 12-year-old sister survived the war years by living with  Jewish partisans in the woods.  She married Mr. Stone, a partisan from her hometown of Belice, Lithuania, during that time period.  Several years after the war they moved to Rochester, NY where they raised their family. After Mr. Stone passed away in 2000, Mrs. Stone made aliyah and spent her time with her daughter, grandchildren and two sisters living in Israel.  As a friend of her daughter, I was privileged to know Mrs. Stone as a lovely, insightful person.

יהי זכרה ברוך

Tip no. 20

Many readers of this blog will be familiar with the book Number the Stars by Lois Lowry.  It is a Newbury winner about Denmark during the Holocaust.  I am sure that many parents will be happy to know that the book is available in Hebrew as 

מונה מספר לכוכבים. In 1943, the Danish people rescued almost all of the Danish Jewish population by evacuating them to neutral Sweden.  This book of historical fiction brings the story to life .
Ages 10-12.

Biographies and Autobiographies - Part 2

I can't write about Israeli biographies for children ages 10-14 without mentioning דבורה עומר /Devorah Omer, a prolific children's book author who was awarded the Israel Prize in 2006 and passed away in 2013.

Here are a few examples of her many biographies:

שרה גיבורת נילי/ Sarah the Hero of NILI tells the story of Sarah Aaronson.  Aaronson was a member of NILI, the Jewish spy ring working with the British during World War I.  Ages 11 -14

צוללים קדימה / Divers Forward is loosely based on the story of Saul Sela, an oleh from North Africa, who served in the Israeli Navy's special forces.  It was not an easy task for an oleh from North Africa to serve in an elite unit during the 1950's. Ages 12-14

אל ראש ההר / To the Top of the Mountain is the biography of David Ben-Gurion,  Ages 11-14

נשבעתי אמונים/ I Swore Allegiance is the biography of Yitzhak Rabin.  The book covers his childhood.  Ages 11+

משחק החול / The Sand Game tells the story of author אורי אורלב /Uri Orlev's  childhood. From the first sentence in the book,  we learn that Orlev was born in 1931, his father was a doctor and he wanted to be a tram driver when he grew up. The book tells the story of Orlev's  childhood in Poland, his experiences in the Holocaust and his aliyah with his brother to Palestine after the war.  The autobiography is only 50 pages long but Orlev does an amazing job of describing this period of his life and his imaginative coping methods. With the help of their Aunt Stepha,  Orlev and his brother survived the Warsaw Ghetto and the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp.    Ages 11-14.

In המרוץ אחר המדליה ההודית/ The Chase after the Indian Medal,  author יוסי גודטרד / Yossi Godard tells about an amazing chapter in the life of his father,  Yakov Godard.  In 1934, Yakov Godard was cut from the Palestinian Sports Deligation to the Asian Olympic Games because of lack of funds. After the delegation was already on its way to  India,  Godard found someone to sponsor him.  He then had to find a way to get to New Dehli in time to participate in the games. He went from Tel-Aviv to Baghdad and then from Basra to  Karachi and finally New Delhi. He went by truck, bus, boat, train and rickshaw.    He ran out of luck when he got to New Dehli and found out that the swimming competition had been that morning. He was too late to participate.  In the end, he did participate in the swimming competition.  How did that happen?  You have to read the book to found out how this real life adventure story ends! Ages 9 - 12.

 Tip no. 10

Last week, I went with a friend to the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem.   It's one of my favorite museums. This quote from the Center's website does an excellent job of explaining about the museum.  

"The museum takes visitors on a time-journey that includes historical reconstructions and reenactments, rare dramatic documentary videos, interactive touch-screen exhibits, striking presentations and a surround sound narration. Visitors are “invited” to experience firsthand and to “take part” in the different chapters of Begin’s life – his childhood in Poland, his years as the commander of the Irgun, the leader of the Opposition and finally, as Prime Minister of the State of Israel."

Before going to the Center, be sure to read Devorah Omer's book about the life of Menachem Begin. The biography is called דבורה עומר מספרת על בגין / Devorah Omer Talks about Begin.  Ages 8-10.

Biographies and Autobiographies - Part 1

There are so many choices of biographies and autobiographies available for children that I decided to write two posts on this topic.  This week's post will cover books for ages 6-10 and next week's post will cover books for ages 10-14.

Until a few years ago, there was not a large choice of these types of books for 7-10-year-olds.  Now you can find a wide selection of books either written in Hebrew or translated from other languages.

אני... ג'ין/Me... Jane is written and illustrated by פטריק מקדונל/ Patrick McDonnell.  This book which is translated from the English won a Caldecott  Honor Award in 2012 for its illustrations.  The book tells the story of Jane Goodall, the world expert on chimpanzees, growing up with her favorite toy chimp called Jubilee.  Goodall loved to observe animals and nature.   She dreamed of moving to Africa and living among the animals and helping them. One day she woke up and realized that her dream had come true! This picture book is for ages 4-7.

סדרת גיבורים אמתיים/ Real Heroes Series is a four-book series. The authors are שירלי יובל-יאיר/ Shirley Yuval-Yair and ד"ר טל בן-שחר/ Dr. Tal Ben- Shahar. Shirley Yuval-Yair is a psychologist, musician, and author.  Dr. Ben-Shahar is a world famous expert on Positive Psychology. They have written biographies about Helen Keller, Thomas Edison, Ludwig Van Beethoven and Dian Fossey.

 Children are often inspired by the biographies and autobiographies that they read.  This series goes one step further.  Each book teaches an important lesson. In every book of this series,  we meet the Hermon family whose children have a particular problem that the parents deal with by telling the story of a historical figure.   We learn how these real life heroes dealt with real life problems.    We learn that failure is a learning experience.  Thomas Edison failed often but from his failures came the knowledge to invent the electric light bulb.  We learn through the life of Dian Fossey that one can be brave and still be scared. She was afraid of going to Africa to see gorillas but   she did go in the end and became famous for her work with mountain gorillas.

  At the end of every book, Dr. Ben- Shahar explains to parents how to use the coping methods discussed in the books. These books are well written and have imaginative illustrations. Ages 7-10.

הבית עם שעון האותיות/ The House with the Alphabet Clock is written by רעיה בלטמן   /Raya Blatman.  This is one of several autobiographical books that Blatman wrote.  In this book, she tells us about making aliyah in 1934 from the Ukraine when she was seven years old.  Unlike olim today,  her family made aliyah by boat and came with very little luggage. Her relatives picked her family up at the port and brought them to Jerusalem by bus! Blatman had learned to speak a very literary Hebrew in the Ukraine but that was not the way Hebrew was spoken in Palestine.

 How did Raya adjust to making aliyah and why is this book called The House with the Alphabet Clock?  You will have to read the book to find out the answers to these questions.  Ages 8-10.

הנקה ופיט/ Haneke and Fit is written by רון כהן אהרונוב/ Ron Cohen Harounoff. Cohen Harounoff writes so well that we can really imagine how it feels to be a very, little girl caught in a frightening situation.  During World War II,  the author's mother was only three years old when she was separated from her parents and hidden with several  Dutch families in Amsterdam. She finally remained with a  wonderful family for three years until the end of the war.  Their daughter Fit was her only companion and they became so close that they have remained friends until today. The war years were in no way easy but Haneke did not have to spend them in a ghetto, a concentration camp, or the forest.  Haneke's parents survived the war as well.

I highly recommend reading this book and then offering it to your children to read .  It's a wonderful book on its own and it's also a good first Holocaust book for children to read. The illustrations are very soft and gentle.In addition, it's a story of a special friendship that has lasted over  70 years!  Ages 7-9.

Tip no. 9

  - לקרוא ולעוף עם הדמיון כנפיים

  כנפיים לקרוא ולעוף עם הדמיון    

Wings - To Read and Fly with Imagination is a website of recommended books for children ages 9-13.  While the website was only active from 2003-2007, it is still a great source of information on children's books. There is a profile for each book which includes  the author, illustrator, publisher, year of publication, the number of pages, a short synopsis of the book and more. The profile also usually includes the first chapter of each book.