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| Miriam Yalan-Stekelis |
A Selection of Poems |
| Children |
If every country has its best-loved "national" child, then in Israel it is surely Danny; brave, dirty Danny who knows everything, fears nothing and hardly ever cries (only sometimes). The first book of Danny poems appeared in 1943 and three generations of Israelis grew up reciting them. Considered the mother of Hebrew children’s poetry, the centrality of Miriam Yalan-Stekelis' writing to Israeli children's culture cannot be overestimated. Suffused with joy, her rhyming verse often focuses on the pattern of a small child's disappointment and his subsequent comfort.
The vitality of her children and the completeness of each poem recall Hillaire Belloc’s Cautionary Tales but there the comparison ends, for these heroes might go to bed crying, but they never pay too dearly for their misdeeds.
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