Bringing the bedtime book to newest Israelis

Thousands of Israeli children grew up on Miriam Roth's book "Hot Corn" (Tiras Ham, Bim Bam Bam), which has become something of a local classic.

But not all parents know the book. Families from Ethiopia, for example, are not accustomed to reading stories to children, among other things because some of the parents are not fluent in Hebrew and cannot read and write Amharic. Thus many children of the Ethiopian community are not familiar with books when they enter kindergarten, and subsequently have difficulty in learning to read and write.

The NGO Kehilla ("community"), which is operated by the urban Kibbutz Tamuz, in Beit Shemesh, has had "Hot Corn" and other chidren's books translated into Amharic. These include "Eliezer and the Carrot," by Levin Kipniss, "The Lion Who Loved Strawberries," by Tirza Attar, and American artist Eric Carle's "The Very Hungry Caterpillar," among others.

The translations are part of a project financed by Yad Hanadiv Foundation to teach pre-kindergaten children of Ethiopian origin reading skills. The children, aged 1-3, attend the day-care center operated by Kehilla in Beit Shemesh.

All the books are accompanied by discs and cassettes in which the stories are read in Amharic, so the children and their parents don't have to be able to read to enjoy them. The idea is to make these books accessible even to parents who are illiterate.

"It's not really reading aloud, but listening to a story," says Tamar Goldman, who initiated the project. "Kindergarten teachers tell us that when these children arrive in their classes, they know what a book is."

"At first the parents said: 'but we can't read,'" says Zehava Goshen, an employee of the NGO who is herself of Ethiopian origin. "We showed them that they don't have to be able to read. The book comes with a cassette and it's enough to page through it with the children."

Goshen read the books to her own children, who have responded enthusiastically. "They really enjoyed them, and so did we. At first I had to give them encouragement, but eventually they began exchanging the book and cassette every week. They don't speak Amharic but when they hear that it's in Amharic, they're happier."

The project is aimed at dealing with immigrant absorption and the meeting of cultures in a different way than usual, says Goldman. "Children's books are not part of Ethiopian culture. Parents understand that it's important to read books, but it's not something they grew up on. In our culture, it's a very important tool and we wanted the parents to be partners," she adds.

"It's important to have Ethiopian culture present in the day-care center. We wanted to convey the idea that Amharic is equal in value to Hebrew, and that it has a written language too. It's given them the feeling that they have something to be proud of," says Goldman.

"In many educational frameworks immigrant kids are told: Don't speak Amharic, don't speak Russian. But studies show that children learn foreign languages better if they have a sound mother tongue, not on the basis of obliterating their mother tongue. We want to strengthen the parents and give them the feeling that they have something to offer their children," she says.