by Etgar Keret

Between Hopes and Reality

I’m not afraid of sad stories, because sadness is born from the clash between hopes and reality. Jewish tradition is based on asking questions and not taking things for granted. Moses, Jonah, Job and others dared to argue with God. Jewish learning in hevruta, too, consists of learning by arguing. I think that this tradition that both questions and respects authority and admits ambiguity and weakness in its greatest heroes affected my writing. When I write for children I write from a place that admits the complexity of life.

Etgar Keret lives in Tel Aviv and published four books of short stories and novellas. His latest book, The Busdriver Who Wanted to Be God was published in the U.S. by St. Martin’s Press. His writing has appeared in 21 languages.

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How Books Tell the World’s Bad News to Children

The articles in this special section:

Beware Sentimental Tripe

by Jane Yolen

Truth Soothes

by Susan Rich

Heroines Overcome their Demons

by Gail Carson Levine

Children: Stronger Than We Think

by Shira Geffen

Bad News from the Start

by Ellen Handler Spitz

Every Child Imagines Orphanhood

by Gail Hareven

Kaddish as Magical Incantation

by Susie Morgenstern

Cry for Someone Else

by Esther Rudomin Hautzig

History Helps

by Karen B.Winnick

Struggles of Underdogs

by Sonya Sones

Transmitting Determination

by Dorit Orgad

No Brainwashing

by Yehudit Kafri

Hope After the Holocaust

by Ruth Minsky Sender

Pain Is a Teacher

by Julius Lester

Forget Bibliotherapy

by Johanna Hurwitz

War in a Picture Book?

by Fran Manushkin

Discovering Hatred

by Leslea Newman

Don’t Plant Seeds of Despair

by Sami Michael

Between Hopes and Reality

by Etgar Keret

The Power of Anger

by Rabbi Sandy Eisenberg Sasso