A Story that Anat Especially Likes

When children tell a story, they start with one incident and often go on to tell a sequence of stories that makes sense to them, but which adults may find difficult to follow. Shumdi the rabbit tells a story with such grace and innocence, just like a child. But at the end of it comes a question that both adults and children can reflect on – what makes us special? And what happens to someone who mimics others so often that he cannot remember his own voice?

“First, I write the word, the sentence. The subject is the one I find most important.

I try to write using very simple language, looking for nuances of truth”.

(Yehonatan Geffen, The Ofek Lexicon of Children’s Literature, Zmora Bitan, 1985)

Yehonatan Geffen (1947-2023) wrote the book Stories that Anat Especially Likes when he was a young IDF officer. He went on to become an artist and writer, authoring books for both children and adults, as well as a satirist and journalist. His book The Sixteenth Lamb became a well-loved Israeli classic with which several generations of children have grown up.