Picture book, 32 pages. Audience: 5 - 9 years. Published by Kar-Ben Publishing in 2022. A Sydney Taylor Notable Book; Winner of the Crystal Kite Award; Tablet Magazine's Best Jewish Kids Books of the Year.
Heroes & Heroines are Family
Shoham's Bangle is not a biography about a famous person, but about a heroine closer to home - Shoham's Nana. When I first heard about this picture book in a podcast interview with author Sarah Sasson, I was fascinated by the story with the secret hope in my heart that I will be a heroine in my grandchildren's memories.
Sasson's Nana Aziza told her the story of how her family was airlifted from Iraq to Israel in 1951 in Operation Ezra & Nehemiah - relocated along with 120,000 other Iraqi Jews. Sasson was inspired to write this children's story as a reminder for all immigrant children it's not about the home we leave behind, but the home we rebuild. Wow. Making It Real
What stories about your life's journey do you share with your children? How about your parents' stories? Telling our children these stories builds their identity and gives them their history far beyond their own lives. Telling these stories also shows them the way forward in their own lives. Maya Angelou's quote about the importance of these stories is one of my favorite!
Today, people are so disconnected that they feel they are blades of grass, but when they know who their grandparents and great grandparents were, they become trees, they have roots, they can no longer be mowed down.
Conversations prompted by questions about our lives is the best way to share life stories with our children/grandchildren. But if you need resources to help, look at sites such as StoryWorth or about memory books and legacy videos for ideas on additional ways to keep of record of family history.
If you want something a bit more concrete to make it real, there are family tree activities for children of all ages. A surprisingly relevant place to start is with the National Archives' Genealogy Activities for Kids. Comments are closed.
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