Imagine writing a children’s book in a language that has no word for “doll” or “ice cream”.
That’s what the pioneers of Hebrew children’s literature were up against, says author-researcher Dorit Gani, a reference librarian at the National Library of Israel.
The first writers of Hebrew children’s books were working in the late-18th century “in a ‘dead’ language that had served only as a holy tongue for reading the Bible and prayers,” she says. The move started in Germany, where the Hebrew Enlightenment necessitated textbooks for elementary readers, and spread to eastern Europe.
“At this time we’re beginning to see secular texts being written in Hebrew specifically for children,” says Gani.
The second chapter came in the 19th century, when Avraham Mapu wrote The Love of Zion. Intended as a historical novel for adults, the pastoral romance was embraced by young people, making it, you could argue, the first Hebrew YA crossover.
Further progress was sporadic until the very late-19th century, when leading authors writing for adults entered the junior market, among them Chaim Nachman Bialik, later the Nation’s Poet but at this point writing for children and establishing children’s book publishers.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, David Copperfield and Grimm’s Fairy Tales were among the translations from English. “Cinderella in talmudic language is very funny to look at today,” remarks Gani.
And there were other cultural changes.“The names were turned into Hebrew,” she says. Tom became Tam. Alice in Alice in Wonderland became Aliza.
“In one of the first scenes in Tom Sawyer, his aunt asks him to paint the fence on a Saturday – when translated, this becomes Friday. In Alice in Wonderland, Alice and the caterpillar’s references to classic English literature are swapped for the Haggadah.
Around 1930, the page turns to Mandatory Palestine, with children who now had Hebrew as their first language being offered more natural and engaging children’s literature. But there was a plot twist. “The aim was not only literary but also ideological,” says Gani. “In the 1930s and 1940s, children are cultural agents for the Zionist project.” Most of the plots take place on kibbutz or amid the natural landscape. Literature was trying to weave the fabric of a state, she says, to create “the fearless and independent Sabra child”.
In the 1950s and 1960s “the child returns to being a child and not an agent of anything and we turn from children’s books where the child is sacrificing himself for the collective to books where the child is an individual”, says Gani.
In Alice in Wonderland, Alice becomes Aliza and the caterpillar’s references to classic English literature are swapped for the Haggadah
The stories also shift from adventures outside the home, with the children alone, to happenings inside the home with family.
By the 1970s, Hebrew children’s literature has arrived, and “you can start talking about classics, parents reading to their children the same books that were read to them and children singing in kindergarten the same songs their parents sang”.
An excellent place to explore Hebrew children’s literature further is the National Library of Israel. It’s open to public and the new building is breathtakingly beautiful.
All of the children’s collection is there and can be ordered and enjoyed. And it is in the process of being digitised.
The library, which has a longstanding relationship with Jewish Book Week, is packed with events, exhibitions and educational activities, with academics, personal researchers and schoolchildren from Jewish and Arab schools learning side by side.
“We’re not just talking about books but also about journals, recordings of children’s songs, and archives of authors and publishers,” says Gani.
“And we’re not only about Israeli and Hebrew literature; we also have everything that’s connected to Jewish literature and Hebrew literature around the world – books written by Jewish writers in Hebrew and not in Hebrew. You can learn a lot about Jewish communities in the diaspora by looking at their children’s literature.”
Today “Hebrew children’s literature is taken very seriously – it continues today to be the best authors for adults who write for children”, says Gani.
Contemporary stars include David Grossman. But while his books for adults have all been translated into English, barely any of his children’s titles have. Meir Shalev is another.
One classic that is available in English is Leah Goldberg’s Room for Rent about the diverse animal residents of a building who are trying to fill a vacant room. Goldberg was a key mover in shaping modern Hebrew children’s literature, as a writer, editor, taste-setter and protector of high literary quality in children’s books. In Room for Rent, a series of prospective tenants arrive and reject the room because they don’t like the look of the residents. Then a dove arrives who isn’t so keen on the accommodation but who likes the other animals.
"It’s a story of peace,” says Gani, whose own books for children include biographies of Golda Meir and Leah Goldberg, which are part of a series on prominent Israeli women.
A personal favourite of hers is Meir Shalev’s The Tractor in the Sandbox, about an old tractor on a kibbutz and the vehicle’s driver. “They work together. Then the tractor gets old and the tractor driver gets old. New tractors and drivers come to the kibbutz and they put [the old tractor] in the sandbox of the kindergarten but the driver doesn’t give up. He fixes the tractor and they drive the children to kindergarten and on trips.
“For the children, it’s a story they like because – tractors! And there’s also so much compassion between the lines. How you should treat the old ones.
“I really like both the message and the way it’s interwoven without ever becoming didactic – I think that’s an example of how children’s literature should be written.”
Gani will speak at the 75th edition of Jewish Book Week in ‘From Pray to Play: The Birth of Hebrew Children’s Literature’, on March 1 at Kings Place, London
Book tickets here
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