children

Will your next bedtime story be on an e-reader? Two interesting blog posts about children and ereaders

beccakinla blogs, children, children's books, ebooks, ereaders, eric kimmel, motherlode, picture books, publishing Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Children Reading

(picture from Clipart ETC)

About a year ago, my sister sent me a link to a blog post by Eric Kimmel about whether we’ll be seeing e-picture books.

Mr. Kimmel was responding to an article in the NY Times which describes the development of color monitors on ereaders. The article’s author strongly believes that the spread of these devices will attract child readers.

Mr. Kimmel brings up many salient points, both pro and con ereaders for children. On the pro side: producing an ebook is much cheaper than producing a full-color picture book with glossy paper; children might be attracted to the format. On the negative side: whose device are they reading on? Is a small child able to handle an ereader independently? Is the gimmick of the format going to wear off? Is it going to become another excuse for publishers not to acquire and produce picture books (which is already a big problem)?

I recalled that post today when I read another article, this time on the Motherlode blog of the NY Times. http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/28/why-books-are-better-than-e-books-for-children/
The author, KJ Dell’antonia, recently read a Time Magazine article about children’s literacy and ereaders. The Time article suggests that children interact differently with ebooks than with print literature–and so do the adults facilitating the reading experience. These habits negatively impact their ability to learn to read.

In the Jewish community, there’s an additional issue: a lot of relaxed family time takes place on Shabbat and Yom Tov. That’s when Ima and Abba have time to curl up with Junior and Juniorette and read. For many of us, that means no electronic devices. Sure, we’ll read an ebook, but not on Shabbos.

Maybe e-picture books do have a future–actually, I’m betting they do. But they’ll need to address at least some of these failings in order make them take over the picture book market entirely.

Wiggleroom?

beccakinla blogs, books, children, children's books, clean, eric kimmel, esther, homeshuling, Judaism, midrash, movie, purim, young abraham, young avraham Leave a comment

About six months ago, my sister sent me the link to an interview with Eric Kimmel, the acclaimed children’s author. The popular blogger at Homeshuling chatted with Mr. Kimmel about his retelling of the Purim story, which came out early this past spring.

(Before I go any further, I want to make clear that I’m actually a big fan of Mr. Kimmel despite what follows. I assure you that many of his books are perfectly appropriate for Jewish families, and urge you to purchase them or borrow them from the library.)

One of the central themes of the interview is whether it’s okay to alter the details of a story from the Tanach (Hebrew Bible) or a folktale. Mr. Kimmel feels that “You cannot be absolutely tied to the text or you are going to tie yourself into knots.” 

Read more: http://blog.beliefnet.com/homeshuling/2011/03/an-interview-with-eric-kimmel.html#ixzz1eagiZr1n
He continues later,

I’m writing modern midrash. Because midrash continues to the present day. We are constantly reinterpreting and reinventing these stories. They are not locked in stone. I want children to learn that the stories of the Torah are great stories – they stand with the best of them – Anderson and Grimm – and it all comes down to the story.

 

Recently, my family purchased the animated movie, Young Abraham. This film incorporates many elements of midrash, dropping certain details and streamlining or fictionalizing others. I was a little uncomfortable with the tampering with tradition, but the overall message is the same as in the original midrashim and completely coincides with frumkeit so I don’t mind my children viewing it.

This is not the case with Mr. Kimmel’s The Story of Esther: A Purim Tale. The author plays fast and loose with the details of the original text, which is–after all–a sacred work from the Tanach. For example, he “glosses over” the deaths of Haman and his family. However, one of the central points of Book of Esther is that Esther and Mordechai are making a tikkun (correction) for the lack of follow-through King Saul demonstrated when he didn’t kill King Agag of the Amalekites despite HaShem’s instructions to do so. Additionally, it’s very important to a true understanding of the Book of Esther that Achashveirosh is a drunken slob and that Esther doesn’t really want to be married to him. Mr. Kimmel changes that detail, too.

These are changes to essential details, and I wouldn’t want to read this book to my children.

Similarly, in Even Higher, a retelling of the famous I.L. Peretz story about the Rabbi of Nemerov, Mr. Kimmel wanted to give a little context to the story. However, the information he interjects to explain the battles between the misnagdim and the chassidim is incorrect. His mishandling of the chassidus vs. misnaged battles of the 18th and 19th centuries actually makes the subject more murky, not less (and is probably not age-appropriate anyway).

In the same story, Mr. Kimmel shows the Rebbe livening up an old lady by dancing with her. It is highly unlikely a Chassidishe rebbe would dance with a woman, and it sends a message that you can just ditch halachah (in this case, the rules against negiah) if your intentions are okay.


I think that perhaps there is a little “wiggleroom” when you teach children (and writing a picture book is essentially teaching)–but you have to respect the original message and not misrepresent authentic Judaism in the retelling. For this reason, my husband and I generally screen even Jewish books before they enter our home.

What’s your opinion?

Shall we play a funeral dirge?

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Yes, it’s time to break out a little Chopin funeral march.

Tiras Cham (Hebrew)

Two of our favorite Hebrew picture books have been officially loved to death: the classic Tiras Cham and HaShalom shel Michael. Their tattered pages are currently being mourned by the members of the Klempner household.

This event has sent me on a new adventure: finding new copies. I’ve been successful at finding Tiras Cham. That book is so popular in Israel that Steimatsky there sells Tiras Cham-themed pajamas (possible Chanukah gifts for my little ones?) and you can easily purchase books through their website. However, HaShalom shel Michael is nowhere to be found on the internet. It’s like it never existed. I’ve tried transliterating in a variety of ways and even translating despite my relatively poor Hebrew skills (Should that be Michael’s Hello or Michael’s Greeting?). Zilch!

I’m a little traumatized. Perhaps I’ll patch up the sad, dilapidated pages that have fallen out of the binding and onto the floor. It’s such a beautiful story, all about greeting everyone with a “panim yafot,” as Shammai suggests in Pirkei Avot. I highly recommend the book to everyone…if you can just find a copy!

My time isn’t a total loss. The plus side is that I discovered a neat-o blog about Hebrew language education with some nifty things in it (like an art project/lesson plan to go with another Israel classic, HaBayit Shel Yael):
http://inoursmallgarden.wordpress.com/childrens-books/
Then that blog led me to another:
http://www.dafdaf.co.il/
And another!
http://www.internationalchildbook.com/hebrewlanguage/1318031?page_483032555=2
And yet another!
http://justhebrew.com/

How do we mourn?

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My husband says one of the reasons we can’t truly mourn the loss of the Beis HaMikdash (the Holy Temple in Jerusalem) on Tisha B’Av is because we don’t understand what we are missing. We never saw the Temple with our own eyes, and the coming of Moshiach will be so miraculous, we can’t even imagine it. Books can help us to better appreciate the loss of the Beis HaMikdash and picture the future end to our exile.
Leah Braunstein Levy’s The Waiting Wall, Genendel Krohn’s When We Left Yerushalayim, and Rabbi Fishel Schachter’s Yibaneh HaMikdash, can help children identify with the gravity of Tisha B’Av and hope for the redemption. Moreover, there are a number of excellent books and DVDs (such as Chaim Shmuel Friedman’s) which elaborately describe the Beis HaMikdash’s appearance and function, and these can help us too.
I’d also recommend David Shapiro’s The Promise of G-d, which depicts a possible scenario for the coming of Moshiach.
You could even use this as a writing exercise:
Simply sit on the floor and contemplate what will be different when Moshiach arrives, when there is no more war. Xenophobia and illness–gone! Wealth distributed fairly! The RAMBAM writes that there will no envy or competition, either. Imagine a world united to the service of G-d and happy in it. Write it down, believe in it. Then think about the gap between that future time and what we have now. Better yet, think about one thing you can do to bring that beautiful future closer.

Moving photoessay online based on book "Where Children Sleep"

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This piece in the New York Times contains selections from an upcoming book about the lives of children worldwide. When I saw these pictures of children and their bedrooms, I was greatly moved. James Mollison’s exquisite photos let you draw your own conclusions without any commentary, and–boy!–I drew quite a few.
For one thing, you can clearly see the variety of ways in which human beings live. Everyone knows that intellectually, but these pictures really send the message home.
The other thing that becomes immediately apparent is the material simplicity in which many of these children live. In some cases, there is obvious poverty and even oppression (the child in Appalachia, the pregnant 14 y o in Rio and the domestic worker in Katmandu). In other cases, material simplicity reflects a completely different way of seeing the world (Tvika in Beitar Ilit, the two Rendille children in Kenya and 8 y o Kraho boy from Brazil).
Here in the U.S., we see images of perfectly appointed bedrooms with matching furniture, bedding, and decor (there are some of those in Mollison’s photos, too) in Pottery Barn and Ikea catalogs and long for them. We see material excess and long for it. But for the vast majority of children on earth, those perfect bedrooms are impossible to obtain. These photos even make you consider–are they worth obtaining, after all? Is the child on Park Avenue happier than the one sleeping on the bare earth in the Sahara?
Something to think about.
Also interesting is that many of these bedrooms contain no visible reading material.

Jewish Book Carnival coming in July

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Ann Koffsky, author and illustrator, will be hosting AJL’s Jewish Book Carnival on her website. Check in to the site after July 15th for links to blogs and websites with Jewish book themes. There’s also a Goodreads group with discussions, etc. See here for more details. http://www.jewishlibraries.org/main/Resources/Blog/JewishBookCarnivalHQ.aspx