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| Orly Castel-Bloom |
Let`s Behave Ourselves
Talking to My Son |
| Children |
Jerusalem, Keter, 1997. 44 pp. Ages 3-6
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Orly Castel-Bloom`s book takes the form of a series of conversations between mother and son, an innovation in the field of literature for the very young. First and foremost, its target audience is very young children who are just beginning to learn about the world around them and to experiment with various problems; but it also has an implicit audience - adults, mainly mothers, who read to their child at bedtime. They may find this charming, moving and simple book is also a small volume of philosophy. If in conventional stories for very young children the division of roles is clear and unequal - the experienced parent teaches, while the child acquires knowledge and learns from mistakes until becoming a kind of "little adult" - in Castel-Bloom`s book the division of roles is blurred, the child insists on his right to make his own truth heard, which is in no way inferior to the truth of the adult. It would seem that questions about wisdom and who knows more, child or adult, are being re-examined here. And so when mother Orly tells her son Hanoch to behave nicely at her friend Nurit`s house, Hanoch gently admonishes, "Let`s both behave at Nurit`s house." Orly agrees, of course, and she can only reiterate her son`s comment.
This series of conversations sheds light on two independent worlds, Orly`s and Hanoch`s, but also on the relationship between mother and son. The latter is made up of ordinary and routine details familiar to every child and every mother: what`s for dinner, why is it wrong to throw your shoe at Mother, let`s count to 10, what did you learn at kindergarten today, etc. Each of these topics becomes the subject of a conversation which is actually a little story, full of imagination and humor.
Illustrations: Carmit Giladi-Pollard
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