[Mendele] Mendele Personal Notices and Announcements--Bovo-bukh for children: seeking advice

Victor Bers victor.bers at yale.edu
Thu Dec 18 21:04:07 EST 2014


Dec. 18, 2014

To minimize wear and tear on the untershames, three requests:

1. Send time-sensitive notices well in advance.

2. Send material as plain text to victor.bers at yale.edu as plain text (no
HTML, other coding,or

attachments and write MENDELE PERSONALS in the subject line.

3. Correspond directly with the person who or organization which has posted
the notice, *not* with your ever-beleaguered untershames.


________________________________________________________


From: "Jerold C. Frakes" <jcfrakes at buffalo.edu>
Date: Thu, 04 Dec 2014 11:41:00 -0500
Subject: Bovo-bukh for children



Bovo-bukh for children:

Recently I published a volume entitled Early Yiddish Epic (Syracuse
University Press, 2014), a collection of ten Old Yiddish epics in English
translation, including the renowned Bovo-bukh. While most Yiddish-speakers
know something about the Bovo-bukh, a reminder might be useful for some. On
the surface it seems an unlikely tale for an early modern Ashkenazic
audience: it is a grand medieval tale, in Old Yiddish, of swashbuckling
knights, chivalric quests, talking animals, reptile-infested dungeons,
slavery, villainous giants, hurricanes at sea, marauding lions, dragons,
and evil kings. The tale follows the topsy-turvy fortunes of Sir Bovo, a
stalwart knight in shining armor, but the damsels whom he confronts more
often than not do not need rescue but rather save him, and it is through
them that Bovo learns the true meaning of the chivalric values of honesty,
loyalty and virtue, that is: how to do the right thing in a world filled
with villains, dangers, and betrayal where one least expects it. Eventually
good triumphs over evil, and Bovo finally settles down to live happily ever
after with his beloved Princess Druzeyna (who more than once is identified
as Jewish).

While I was working on the translations, it occurred to me that in addition
to the interest that an adult reading audience might have in the Bovo-bukh,
it is also a great story for children. So I rewrote and adapted the tale as
a ‘mid-grade children’s book’ (i.e. for 9-14 year-olds); it is 26,000 words
in length (eighty double-spaced pages).

The problem is that although I have extensive experience in scholarly
publishing, I am a babe in the woods of children’s book publishing, where
literary agents and commissioning editors and the bottom line are decisive.
Thus I write to ask the help of Mendele-subscribers. If there are
children’s literature agents or publishers out there among Mendele readers
who might be interested in a kid-Bovo, please write to me off-list.

Best wishes,
Jerold C. Frakes

-- 
Jerold C. Frakes
SUNY Distinguished Professor
University at Buffalo

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

Please direct your response directly to the person whom or organization
which posted the item.


Material for posting in Mendele Personal Notices  and
Announcements,typically announcements of events, commercial publications,
and questions not of general interest to the membership,should be sent to:

    victor.bers at yale.edu (IMPORTANT! in the subject line write "Mendele
Personal")

Material for postings to Mendele Yiddish literature and language
i.e,inquiries and comments of a non-commercial or publicity nature and
likely to interest the membership in general, should be sent to

      mendele at mailman.yale.edu

IMPORTANT:  Please include your full name as you would like it to appear in
your posting.  No posting will appear without its author's name.
Submissions to regular Mendele should not include personal email addresses,
as responses will be posted for all to read.  They must also include the
author's name as you would like it to appear.


In order to spare the shamosim time and effort, we request that
contributors adhere, when applicable, as closely as possible to standard
English punctuation, grammar, etc. and to the YIVO rules of transliteration
into Latin letters. A guide to Romanization can be found at this site:

https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v1/url?u=http://www.yivoinstitute.org/about/index.php?tid%3D57%26aid%3D275&k=dpQisR3avULHgiNaNeY%2Btg%3D%3D%0A&r=ABu4HpN2HeJrRtXAQJkvCGX92XD874g8O0Cor%2FK5n5c%3D%0A&m=6ocvNp%2Bl0LJNYtLH%2FuP8afWKWhwZ68NnbQHO2FjcgOk%3D%0A&s=a22e0105fb3c7f17cd1aef1565940a1da829fa08611ab86a08ff49784ea8fcc3


All other messages should be sent to the shamosim at this address:

mendele at mailman.yale.edu

Mendele on the web [interim
address]:https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v1/url?u=https://sites.google.com/site/mendeledervaylik&k=dpQisR3avULHgiNaNeY%2Btg%3D%3D%0A&r=ABu4HpN2HeJrRtXAQJkvCGX92XD874g8O0Cor%2FK5n5c%3D%0A&m=6ocvNp%2Bl0LJNYtLH%2FuP8afWKWhwZ68NnbQHO2FjcgOk%3D%0A&s=3d212863593222e27a49f4866d82cbedd04d13866f470672aa236d2295e4ae8a


More information about the Mendele mailing list