Which roles does each member of your household have? Who would you want to take over from? This book could inspire you to imagine switching roles within your home: What would your child do if they were to take over from Grandpa? What would Grandpa do if he took over from Mom? And how would you be able to help one another?
What do you play in a parade? And what do musical instruments in a band sound like? You can find out all the answers to these questions and more if you listen to this book by scanning the code.
Am I a physician or a clown? Can you guess my occupation? Take turns choosing a profession and acting it out for the other players to guess. If a player’s profession is a little hard to guess, you could give them a clue.
Which character in this book would you like to take over from? You may enjoy looking through it, choosing a character you would like to replace, and share your thoughts with one another: Would you want to take over from the baker? Or play in the parade?
Reading & pausing – this story is comprised of several events, and we therefore recommend stopping every once in a while, and trying to think what will happen next: What will the children do? What secret will be revealed?
Together & separately – what is it that you do better together than you do separately? You may want to discuss this with your child, and share stories of successful collaborations you’ve had as children and adults with them.
Having read this book, you may enjoy collecting some twigs or thin branches and finding out for yourselves: What happens when you try to break one as opposed to a bundle of them?
When the children in the story begin to get frustrated, their mother says: “It’s ok, don’t despair, sweethearts. We fall down, we get up, we overcome, and hold our heads up high”. What encourages us when we feel like giving up? Then how about coming up with a family cheer for when the going gets tough.
To make your very own dragon, you will need a cardboard box, crayons, and some paper: you could cut out holes for your eyes and mouth, add on paper teeth and ears, as well as a cardboard tail. You could even make a family dragon, moving it in tandem – the dragon will only move if you all work together.
You may want to sit close together, read the story, and enjoy the illustrations. Which amusing details and play-on-words did you discover in the illustrations? Perhaps you could ask your child to tell you the story according to the sequence of illustrations.
At the end of the book, the animals try on each other’s tails, wings and fins. What is each new animal comprised of? You may enjoy coming up with names for them.
Somebody is jealous of the other animals, and wants to be like them. Have you ever wished you were more similar to someone else? You may want to share those experiences with your child. Perhaps you could discuss the differences and similarities between your family members, what makes each of you unique, or unites you all. This may be a good opportunity to strengthen your child’s inner qualities, and encourage them to remain true to themselves.
Perhaps you would enjoy acting the story out together. Using various fabrics and accessories, you could make wings, tails, whiskers and feathers. You may want to keep all the disguises and props in an easily accessible basket, and encourage your child to dress up as a different animal each time, bringing the various characters in the book to life.
Do not judge a book by its cover: we are accustomed to describing people using their external features. Can you describe one another without referring to any external features? Was it hard?
This book may inspire you to set up a “garage sale” with clothes, costumes, and accessories that are lying around your house. Invite family and friends over, and together you can play dress up, exchange items, and feel brand new.
You may want to look for other books on dressing up at home, in kindergarten, or at the local library, and read them together. Books such as BrownStripe (Humpas) by Shlomit Cohen-Assif, An Egg in Disguise (HaBeitza Shehithapsa) by Dan Pagis, or A Very Honorable Coat (Tochal, Meil, Tochal) by Ronit Chacham.
Somebody
שְׁמִירָה
Did you know where the name Sabich originated before reading this story?
What do you know about your own family members’ names? Are they biblical? Are any of you named after a relative? Perhaps, like Sabba Sabich, your name or your child’s comes from a foreign language? You may want to discuss your names, their origin and meaning together, and tell your child what made you choose their name for them. Perhaps your child would enjoy making a decorated sign with their name on it, and hang it on their bedroom door.
Sabba Sabich
שְׁמִירָה
Sabba Sabich came to Israel from Iraq. Where did your family come from?
How long has your family been living in Israel? Which country did it come from? Perhaps you could make a world map, and draw arrows on it denoting the path travelled by your family until their arrival in Israel. You may wish to share your own immigration stories with your child, or those of their grandparents. What did you like about the country you came from? What do you like about Israel? What sort of hardships and successes did you experience? Has any member of your family changed their name upon arrival in Israel?
Sabba Sabich
שְׁמִירָה
Sabba Sabich says each community brought with it "a language, songs, names, and traditions"
You may want to teach your child a few words in the language spoken by their grandparents. Together you could recollect special customs and songs, which you could teach and sing with your child. They could also read this book with older members of the family, such as uncles, aunts, or grandparents. Perhaps by doing so they will be told more family stories they had not heard before.
Pizza, falafel, kreplach, Jahnun... Which dishes are typical of your community? You may enjoy preparing a special meal together consisting of dishes typical to your family’s place of origin. You could teach your child how to make traditional food, and even create a family cookbook.
Peel the eggs (ask your child to look for the description in the book!), place one pitta bread on a plate and put hummus on it, with or without hot sauce (schug) or amchur (amba). Add the eggplant, sliced egg, and salad.
Season with salt and pepper, and put a spoonful of tahini on top.
You may want to look at the illustrations together, and look for the disguised animals mentioned in the story. Can your child recognize them all? Who, in your opinion, has the best costume? To whom would you have awarded the prize?
Make costumes and masks for your stuffed toys, set a table with fine food, and sing Purim songs together. Who will win the costume competition, and what will the jackpot be?
You may want to stop reading for a moment at the point where the animals argue, each one thinking it had the best costume, and ask your child to describe the decision-making process for which they would have opted. You could use this book as a platform for discussing achievements, competition, and the feelings associated with winning and losing.
You may want to discuss the fox’s behavior with your child. Did he deserve to win the costume competition? The fox is portrayed as cunning in many stories. Do you know any other books on foxes, such as The Fox and the Grapes, The Chickens and the Fox, or Fox Fables? You could search for them and read them together.
Do you remember a special childhood costume? You may enjoy sharing childhood experiences related to Purim and dressing up with your child. You could also look at family photo albums, and be reminded of parents’, siblings’, and children’s past costumes.
is the author and illustrator of many children’s books, among them: A Smile on every Corner, The Melody, and Oded Burla’s Big Book. You may want to look for more of his books at the library, and enjoy them together.
1. Noa is very attached to the old doll that her grandmother made for her, but also likes new dolls and toys. You can ask your children which dolls and toys they like in particular, and remind them who gave them the gifts and under which circumstances.
2. Mr. Minasa tried to get rid of his old shoes when he arrived in the new country. You can play an imaginary game with your children: If you were leaving for a faraway place, what would you take with you and what would you leave behind?
3. Like Grandmother Agarnesh, you too can craft a hand-made doll for your child, using old socks and clothing. You are invited to send us a photograph of the doll, which we will happily post on the Sifriyat Pijama website!
4. Mr. Minasa arrived in the new country from Ethiopia. Where did your family originate? This is an opportunity to share your personal immigrant story with your children, and show them photographs of the old country. Perhaps you too have old bjects or clothing that you can search for together.
5. Mr. Minasa’s neighbors recognized his old shoes and returned them to him. Did you ever find something and return it to its owner? Was the owner happy to receive the lost object?
6. You can act out the story with your children. Each one in turn takes on the role of Mr. Minasa and looks for places around the house to hide the shoes. The other player finds them and declares, “Oh, here are Mr. Minasa’s old shoes!”
• Flip through the pages of the book with your child and look closely at the delightful illustrations by Shimrit Elkanati. Is this how you had envisioned the cats in the poem? You and your child can draw your own cats and make a special family version of the book.
• Using old socks, fabric and buttons, you can make hand puppets to enact the story – once using your own words, and once reciting the rhyming verses of the original poem.
• The poem is set in rhyme and is easy to recite. Your child can try to learn the words by heart and recite it out loud to you.
• Did you ever want to be like someone else? Did you perhaps dream of hair of a different color or more or less curly, or wish to be taller or shorter? After reading the poem, you can dress up in costume and try to experience looking like someone else. After this game, you could discuss with your child the beauty and beloved traits of everyone in your family, and encourage your child to be happy with who they are.
• You can explain the meaning of the saying “May the honor of your friend be as precious to you as your own” and discuss friendship. Who are your friends? Do you argue at times? How do you reconcile? Together you can draw two pictures: one picture showing friends arguing, and the other depicting the reconciliation.
• When the cats in the poem are offended, their fur stands on end and they arch their backs, and they stop talking to one another. You might talk with your children about feeling offended. How can we tell if we offended a friend or family member? What can we do when this happens? And how should we respond if somebody insults or offends us?
• Do your children know any other poems or stories by O. Hillel? The poem “A Tale of Two Cats” also appears in an anthology of his poems by the same name, accompanied by illustrations by Alona Frankel. You might look for the book at home or in the library, compare the illustrations in the two versions and enjoy reading together all the poems in the anthology.
Shoham’s Bangle 
One Friend Takes Over for Another 
Dragonsticks 
Somebody 
Sabba Sabich 
Masquerade 
An Old Pair of Shoes 
A Tale of Two Cats 
שִׂיחָה
יְצִירָה
בִּשּׁוּל
שֵׁמַע
קְרִיאָה
מִשְׂחָק
הַשְׁרָאָה
חֵקֶר
כְּלָלִי
הַעֲשָׁרָה
סִרְטוֹנִים
חֲגִיגָה
