word in Jewish texts, and various .
- I forms of the root word Shabbat. You
even get a chance to practice writing
I and, for extra credit, try Ashkenazic
and Sephardic pronunciations.
Ifs a pleasure to see a book that not
ionly teaches Hebrew, and teaches it
:well, but also puts the language in its
Jewish context. Yes, of course,.
I Hebrew is used for daily conversation
in Israel. But there's something almost
magical about learning the letters bet,
resh and chof, then being able to
put them together to form
la word like
I Baruch
(blessed).
Along the
way, there are
I all kinds of inter-
: esting facts about
Ithe aleph bet and
!language, which
likely will provide
new information even
to those quite familiar
i with Hebrew.
If you've always wanted
to learn Hebrew, but felt a
little intimidated by some
texts and don't have time for
I a class, take a look at Aleph Isn't
I Tough. It may be exactly what you're
I searching for.

The Butterfly, written and illustrat-
led by Patricia Polacco (Philomel
I Books; $16.99).

Few contemporary authors have such
a devoted following as Patricia Polac-
co. Just mention her works, including
Mrs. Katz and Tush, Pink and Say
and Welcome Comfort, and you'll
get plenty of "oohhs" and "aaahs"
and gushing from parents.
What is it about Ms. Polacco, who
lives in Union City, Mich., that attracts
so many fans?
First of all, she is a wonderful illustra-
tor. In a single picture, you will find
:both detailed, technical excellence —
resulting in an extraordinarily realistic
I image — and, at the same time, a
:seeming fluidity, as if the pictures

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2000

64

were moving, almost living before
your very eyes.
Ms. Polacco also has an almost
uncanny talent for defining an emo-
tion with a single stroke. In her pic-
tures for The Butterfly, for example,
she shows a young girl watching as
Nazis arrest her friend, Monsieur
Marks, the candy man. Though the
girl's eyes comprise just a few, appar-
ently quickly drawn lines, it's truly
amazing how they capture
the feeling of terror.
Certainly, Ms. Polacco
also is popular because
she can write very well.
And her audience is
what might be consid-
ered the most difficult
age group: 8-12.
With younger chil-
dren, you can
always come up
with cute, fun
sentences; with
the older
ones, you
can talk about teen
angst and favorite snack
foods and the lip glosses used by Brit-
ney Spear-S. But those 8-12 year-olds
require a language of their own, and
Ms. Polacco has captured it.
Finally, there's the nature of Ms.
Polacco's material. She'll try just about
anything — death, in Mrs. Katz and
Tush, for example, and Nazis in The
Butterfly. It's admirable.
This latest work is based on Ms.
Polacco's great-aunt Marcel Solliliage,
who was part of the French under-
ground during World War II. Here,
she brings a Jewish family — includ-
ing a little girl named Sevrine — into
her home to hide them from the
Nazis. She does so even though her
action endangers not only her life, but
also that of her young daughter,
Monique. Although Marcel does not
tell her daughter of her actions,
Monique awakes one night to see
Sevrine at the edge of her bed. Thus
begins a friendship that lasts until a
neighbor sees Sevrine and she and
her family are forced to leave.

y

The story is compelling. Even adults
will quickly turn the pages as they
wait to learn Sevrine's fate. And it%
lovingly and artfully written, though the
author opts for the obvious — a but-
terfly as a symbol for freedom. This
has been used time and again in liter-
ature, song and art. But most
important, it was the focus of
I a famous poem actually
written by a child impris-
oned in Theresienstadt,
the German concentra-
tion camp in Czecho-
slovakia.
Children, howev-
er, are not likely to
complain about
an overused liter-
ary image, so it
won't do them
any harm.
What does
need to be
pointed out is
1 Ms. Polacco's historical
inaccuracy.
At the back of the book, she writes,
"Marcel and many other selfless citi-
zens of France made their own
homes a safe haven for Jews escap-
ing to freedom during the terrible
Nazi occupation."
And indeed, as you read The Butter-
fly, you'll get the idea that the vast
majority of French people offered no
support to the Nazis.
This is simply not true. In fact, more
than a few French were among the
most sympathetic to Adolf Hitler.
French citizens were not only willing,
many were eager, to hand over their
Jewish neighbors to the Nazis. And
the raison d'etre of the French Resis-
tance was not to help Jews, but rather
to fight for the freedom of the nation
; of France from Nazi domination.
Furthermore, there was no "many
1 other selfless citizens of France," who
helped Jews. It was a mere handful.
If, in fact, the French were so eager
to come to the aid of their friends and
neighbors, some 90,000 French Jews
would not have been sent to Nazi
death camps.

God Said Amen, written by

Sandy Eisenberg Sasso, with illustra-
tions by Avi Katz (Jewish Lights Publish-
ing; $16.95).

Perhaps you know someone who is
well-meaning, but still kind of self-satis-
fied, preachy and — ugh — oh-so
politically correct it makes your
skin crawl.
Now, meet
the book
form of that
very person.
It's called God
Said Amen. It
will take you
about two sec-
onds to figure out
the plot.
There% a prince
who lives in darkness,
which he hates. There's
a princess who lives
only in light, which she
hates. But neither wants to
go half way to meet the
other.
Fortunately, they have younger
assistants. They share with each
other. This brings world peace.
Really! At the end, a very multi-cul-
tured group sits at the bottom of a
mountain singing together in har-
mony, "And God smiles and says,
Amen."
Jewish Lights prides itself on publish-
ing "multicultural, nondenominational,
nonsectarian" works "endorsed by
Protestant, Catholic and Jewish reli-
gious leaders." Its an interesting idea,
but sometimes the result (as in this
case) is a decidedly predictable,
watered-down story that tries to
please everyone.
"Gosh, we're all just alike — if only
we could just realize it!" this book
says.
A better message would be: we are
all, indeed, very different, and that's
not only acceptable — it's wonderful.
Our challenge is not to see ourselves
as all the same, but rather appreciate
what makes us unique.

