Chil­dren’s

Yid­dish for Babies: A Lan­guage Primer for Your Lit­tle Pitsel

Janet Perr
  • Review
By – August 30, 2011
The pub­lish­ers of this small book clear­ly felt that there are read­ers out there who would enjoy learn­ing Yid­dish terms while look­ing at pho­tos of dia­per-clad babies of var­i­ous eth­nic back­grounds. Each dou­ble page spread fea­tures a col­or pho­to­graph of a cute baby on one side, and a Yid­dish term or expres­sion, includ­ing Eng­lish pro­nun­ci­a­tion and trans­la­tion, on the page fac­ing it. Under­neath these, a para­graph in bold print explains what the baby is doing. For exam­ple, there is a pic­ture of a smil­ing Asian baby stand­ing next to a pot­ty, across from the term kvel­ling,” which means “ proud, burst­ing with joy.” The para­graph says that baby made in the pot­ty,” and mom­my is kvel­ling.” On anoth­er page, a pic­ture shows a baby wear­ing a neck­lace of beads, ear­rings and lip­stick. The term fac­ing this is onge­potchket,” which is pro­nounced oon-ge-potch-kit and means gaudy, over­done.” The sen­tence explain­ing it says what a fan­cy baby, but she’s way too onge­potchket.” (Some may object to the front cov­er which is adorned with an adorable baby in a dia­per, wear­ing a black hat and peyos.) Oth­er books from this author include Yid­dish for Dogs and Hip-Hop for Dogs. The author’s stat­ed pur­pose is to use the book to teach babies Yid­dish. How­ev­er, it is too long for lit­tle ones, and it seems more like­ly that adults will enjoy look­ing at the cute babies while learn­ing or relearn­ing these descrip­tive Yid­dish terms in such an enter­tain­ing fash­ion. As Perr says, the book is fun for the whole mish­pocheh.
Andrea David­son is the librar­i­an of The Tem­ple-Tifer­eth Israel in Beach­wood, Ohio. She holds an M.L.S. from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan and is a for­mer mem­ber of the Syd­ney Tay­lor Book Awards Com­mit­tee. She enjoys try­ing out the books she reviews on the kids at the Tem­ple and on her grandchildren.

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