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Lilah Toy, Moon
Looking for your favorite children's book in Hebrew?
Look no further than West Bloomfield.
•
ELIZABETH APPLEBAUM
AppleTree Editor
1
111 rancine Levine's West
Bloomfield basement is a little
book lover's dream. It is jam-
packed with what Levine admits is "box
after box after box" of books: books in
Italian, Russian, Urdu, Faarsi, German,
Albanian and Hebrew, to name a few.
Some tell stories most of us have never
heard, like Good Fresh Salad an Israeli
tale of a family making a salad with a
beloved grandmother.
Others require no more than a second
look before you realize that Lilah Toy
Yareach is none other than Margaret
Wise Brown's classic Goodnight Moon in
Hebrew.
For the past 18 years, Levine has
served as head of the Olive Press, which
sells foreign-language children's books
throughout Michigan, Ohio and on the
Web. Just a few months ago, Levine was
able to hook up with an Israeli publisher
and has added Hebrew-language books
to her collection.
A longtime folk dancer, Levine has
"always been interested in multicultural
education." For more than 20 years, she
worked with Head Start, where she
often met with families searching for
books in their native language and
reflecting their ethnic heritage. Thus the
Olive Press was born.
Levine always wanted to include
Hebrew-language books at the Olive
Press, but finding a distributor with rea-
sonable prices has been a challenge. She
finally managed to connect with the
right seller over the Internet, but not
before wading through a massive Web of
Francine Levine with just a few of her books in Hebrew, Italian, Urdu, German,
French, Bengali ...
anti-Israel sites ("When you type in
`Children's books' in Hebrew, you're
going to get connected to a lot of places
telling you how 'anti-Arab' these are,"
Levine explains).
Levine, who recently showed her col-
lection at the Israel Fair hosted by Adat
Shalom Synagogue, orders books from
Israel, and often the Olive Press is the
only place they may be purchased with-
in Michigan. Her biggest customers so
far: preschools. Day schools are catching
on too, though, and Olive Press wel-
comes individual buyers.
Levine loves her books. Tfillila (Night
Prayer) by Michal Cohen-Chai is a
favorite. "Everybody who bought this
book loves it," Levine says.
Puzzler
SN
7/30
2004
42
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It's a bedtime story about a child who
"says goodnight to everything in the
world. The sun goes down over the sea,
and the moon comes up, and the sky is
filled with stars. It's a wonderful night-
time book to read to children.
"Stories by Mirik Snir are really popu-
lar," she adds. "She's written dozens of
books in Israel, and a lot of teachers I've
talked to remember hearing her read her
stories."
Olive Press carries five Snir titles, the
most famous of which is Parpar
(Butterfly), which tells the lifecycle of a
butterfly. Another favorite Snir work is
Yam BYerushalyim (The Sea in
Jerusalem), "a really nice story about a
little boy who thinks it never rains in
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Jerusalem. Then finally it rains and he
puts on his boots and goes outside to
splash in the puddles."
Other Snir books include Kufiat
Karton, (The Cardboard Box), in which
children turn a cardboard box into a
playhouse, then decorate it and serve a
meal made of fruits picked from a near-
by orchard ("They're simple words, but
very captivating to children," Levine
says); and Ani Tzovakt Anan (I Paint A
Cloud), which teaches the colors as a
small girl paints a cloud, plants, flowers
and the sky.
" Shemot Muzarim (Strange Names) [by
Shari Dash Greenspan] is a wonderful,
wonderful book," Levine says. "The
illustrations are inviting because they're
so lifelike, just like a kindergarten class.
"I also really like Haftaha Shel Shabbat
B'boker (Surprise on Shabbat Morning),
in which a boy wakes up before his par-
ents on Shabbat. He reads, and makes a
newspaper hat for himself, then he
makes a newspaper hat for his cat, he
puts on his hat and galoshes almost like
a pirate, and finally he makes breakfast
for his parents and they eat together. It's
happy book."
Most tides are geared to children in
grades 3 and younger, though Levine
carries four Hebrew-language picture
dictionaries that focus on flowers, fruits
and vegetables, domestic and wild ani-
mals. She also sells Shapes, Colors and
Sounds by Itzhak Tordjman, a book
endorsed by the Israel Ministry of
Education.
Levine carries classic American tides
that have been translated into Hebrew,
like Lilah Toy Yareach (Goodnight Moon);
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