Publisher's Synopsis
Cambridge scholar, Israel Abrahams (1858-1925), who notes that the charm of the collection lies in its narratives as well as in its "truth." He presents Trager not only as a writer but also as a documenter of the lives of children in pre-State Palestine who conveys, in an authentic and credible manner, the truth of the period and its atmosphere. At the same time, these are narrative stories filled with action, curiosity and playfulness, drawn largely from the life experiences of Trager's younger brothers and sisters. The wide-open spaces surrounding these "children of nature" provide them with adventures both enjoyable and dangerous: They go down to the Yarkon River to fish, though they don't know how to swim; climb on a frightened camel which leads them to an unfamiliar Arab village; cope with serious eye disease; journey to Jaffa on foot to bring oranges to a sick friend; and so forth. It should be noted here that these works in fact represented the first Palestinian Jewish children's literature, recounting what it was to be a young girl or boy at the dawn of the national revival in the Holy Land-amid the arid landscape, the primitive conditions-and at the same time, to be partners with the adults in building a homeland and a people.
