Josh Hasten

Comments

Itamar makes friends is a wonderful book for young children as it promotes understanding between those who live different lives. Itamar lives in a small village in Israel. He loves to play soccer. He is delighted when his cousins who live in a larger city come to visit and play soccer with him. He goes to visit them and they again play soccer. :He realizes when it is time to leave that he has left his soccer ball behind. Some other boys are playing with it and refuse to give it back. After he falls and hurts himself, one of the boys help him and the other boys change their attitude and return the ball. Later they go to Itmars town and play soccer with him. There is friendship when first there was disagreement.… (mer)

This picture is innocuous enough, but I wish it had attempted more. The protagonist, Itamar, is an eight-year-old Israeli, who lives in the country. When he goes to visit his cousins in the city, he has an unpleasant encounter with some city boys, who refuse to return his soccer ball. After Itamar falls and hurts his knee, one of the city boys, Eitan, remembers a time when he hurt himself playing soccer and tries to correct the situation by helping him and apologizing. Itamar then invites the group to visit him in the country. They come, all have a great time, and "Jewish brotherhood" is restored.

I was mostly bothered by the facile solution to the bullying stage of the story. While one would like to believe that children would apologize and make everything okay, I found it to be just too pat an answer. But for young children, this story could be a way to illustrate how to empathize and apologize to another after being unkind.… (mer)