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:Samir and Yonatan
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From: Megan Schliesman <Schliesman>
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 11:01:28 -0600
I want to thank Arthur Levine and Zehava Cohn for providing such wonderful insight into some of the work that went into bringing Samir and Yonatan to readers in the United States. Translated literature is such a powerful vehicle for giving children in the United States the opportunity to consider the lives of children and young adults in other countries and, I think, to ultimately feel connected, to realize that culture and language may offer obvious and often intriguing differences, but it is the things that bind us--the feelings we experience regardless of nation or language or culture--that most often shine through.
I felt this way reading Samir and Yonatan, set in a part of the world we know best (and sadly) through news story after news story, few of which shine a positive light and few of which offer a sense of the individual lives behind the tensions and violence, and gives us a small piece of that story--a very small but important piece--in human terms. What struck me most powerfully about the novel was how very real the children are. Daniella Carmi so skillfully captured the varied ways that children can respond to stress and pain and fear and rendered a beautiful narrative about the power of imagination, and friendship, and of children to find ways to connect and to be themselves, even as they are still learning what that means.
Who else has read Samir and Yonatan? Has anyone shared it with young readers? What struck you, or them, about this novel?
Megan
Megan Schliesman, Librarian Cooperative Children's Book Center School of Education UW-Madison 608&2?03 schliesman at education.wisc.edu
Received on Fri 23 Mar 2001 11:01:28 AM CST
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 11:01:28 -0600
I want to thank Arthur Levine and Zehava Cohn for providing such wonderful insight into some of the work that went into bringing Samir and Yonatan to readers in the United States. Translated literature is such a powerful vehicle for giving children in the United States the opportunity to consider the lives of children and young adults in other countries and, I think, to ultimately feel connected, to realize that culture and language may offer obvious and often intriguing differences, but it is the things that bind us--the feelings we experience regardless of nation or language or culture--that most often shine through.
I felt this way reading Samir and Yonatan, set in a part of the world we know best (and sadly) through news story after news story, few of which shine a positive light and few of which offer a sense of the individual lives behind the tensions and violence, and gives us a small piece of that story--a very small but important piece--in human terms. What struck me most powerfully about the novel was how very real the children are. Daniella Carmi so skillfully captured the varied ways that children can respond to stress and pain and fear and rendered a beautiful narrative about the power of imagination, and friendship, and of children to find ways to connect and to be themselves, even as they are still learning what that means.
Who else has read Samir and Yonatan? Has anyone shared it with young readers? What struck you, or them, about this novel?
Megan
Megan Schliesman, Librarian Cooperative Children's Book Center School of Education UW-Madison 608&2?03 schliesman at education.wisc.edu
Received on Fri 23 Mar 2001 11:01:28 AM CST
