{"id":37363,"date":"2015-05-23T10:11:56","date_gmt":"2015-05-23T14:11:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/?p=37363"},"modified":"2015-05-23T10:12:01","modified_gmt":"2015-05-23T14:12:01","slug":"abukachas-shoes-by-tamar-tessler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/abukachas-shoes-by-tamar-tessler\/","title":{"rendered":"Abukacha’s Shoes by Tamar Tessler"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Abukacha's<\/a>Meet Abukacha, who lives “in a village far, far away” with his family. “Everyone knew Abukacha because he had the biggest shoes in the whole wide world.” After so many years of working and traveling, they’re no longer made for walking, so Abukacha visits his shoemaker neighbor for the perfect new pair.<\/p>\n

As for those battered old lace-ups, Abukacha tosses them in the garbage on his way home. Ironically, comically,\u00a0his friends and neighbors aren’t ready to let\u00a0those distinctive shoes go: the garbage man saves them, certain that a mistake was made; the fisherman rescues them from the sea; a mayor’s daughter pulls them up from a derelict well and sends them home with the\u00a0farmer. Somehow, Abukacha needs to devise a way to set his shoes free …”<\/p>\n

Tel Aviv-based author Tamar Tessler\u2019<\/a>s background as\u00a0a graphic designer is evident\u00a0in her distinctive collages that whimsically combine various textures and papers overlaid with\u00a0simple, colorful cut-outs, together with photographs of people, animals, landscapes all mixed and not-always-so-matched (on purpose). She explains the inspiration for her debut title\u00a0in her ending “Author’s Note”: “When I was a little girl, my aunt Haya would tell me the story of Abukacha and his shoes\u00a0\u2013 a folktale she herself heard as a child from her aunt Fella.”<\/p>\n

Those\u00a0extended family bonds\u00a0deepen as Tessler\u00a0further reveals what’s beneath\u00a0the humor\u00a0is a\u00a0bittersweet homage she’s created by “mixing the old with the\u00a0new and fiction with documentary.” Woven into\u00a0her childhood memories is her family’s history\u00a0\u2013 literally and visually: “Containing photos of my grandmother’s Polish family, this book commemorates her mother, father, brothers, and sisters who perished in the Holocaust,” Tessler\u00a0writes.<\/p>\n

Replace ‘Holocaust’ with any number of seemingly timeless\u00a0tragedies:\u00a0from\u00a0natural\u00a0disasters like earthquakes and floods, to\u00a0international conflicts like war and terrorism, to domestic conflagrations like riots and murders. The need to remember is\u00a0always\u00a0urgent:\u00a0“My hope is that this book will bring these people back to life, if only for a second, and remind us all that every name has a face and a life of its own.” Indeed, indeed.<\/p>\n

If you needed further testimony about\u00a0the magical power of stories, you’ve undoubtedly found it right here.<\/p>\n

Readers<\/strong>: Children<\/p>\n

Published<\/strong>: 2015<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Meet Abukacha, who lives “in a village far, far away” with his family. “Everyone knew Abukacha because he had the biggest shoes in the whole wide world.” After so many years of working and traveling, they’re no longer made for walking, so Abukacha visits his…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37694,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[62,23,6,354],"tags":[6314,32,6608,10,11,135,397,6315],"class_list":["post-37363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-children-picture-books","category-european","category-fiction","category-israeli","tag-abukachas-shoes","tag-adventure","tag-bookdragon","tag-family","tag-friendship","tag-grandparents","tag-humor","tag-tamar-tessler"],"yoast_head":"\nAbukacha's Shoes by Tamar Tessler - BookDragon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/abukachas-shoes-by-tamar-tessler\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Abukacha's Shoes by Tamar Tessler - 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