Nobody is Immune

August 14, 2006 - 10:57 AM by Allison

We all know that being famous or a cultural icon doesn’t protect you from tragedies, but still, it stunned many when the news came that the son of author and activist David Grossman was killed in Lebanon.

Imshin pays tribute to one of her favorite writers:

Our girls grew up on a steady diet of Grossman’s wonderful Itamar books, when they were little. I also loved reading them to them, over and over again.

He must be a wonderful father to write such magical children’s books. My favorite is called ‘Itamar the Dream Hunter’, in which Itamar’s father teaches him to deal with the demon that haunts his dreams by facing it. It sounds very moralistic, but it isn’t. It is lovely and, of course, beautifully written. When Itamar faces his demon, he discovers it’s really very small and sad, and not scary at all.

I notice that about 16 years ago, he published a children’s book called “Uri`s Special Language”. Uri is the name of his twenty- year-old son that was killed.

So sad.

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