Ora Eitan

 

Ora Eitan is one of the most distinguished illustrators and children's book writers in Israel. For 40 years she taught at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem; she was also a guest lecturer at the Rhode Island School of Design. Eitan has illustrated 120 books, such as No Milk (Tambourine), Sun Is Falling, Night Is Calling (Simon & Schuster), Hanna's Sabbath Dress (Simon&Schuster), Cowboy Bunnies (Putnam Juvenile), Georgia Rises: A Day in a Life of Georgia OKeeffe (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) and more. She has also written several children's books. Her books have won dozens of prizes, both locally and internationally.

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Title: Sometimes Big, Sometimes Small

Picture Book

Publisher: Magnes Press

Year: Forthcoming

32 pp.

 

Translation rights: World

Audio visual rights: World

Translation: English translation by David Kriss

 

Dan is almost four. When he gets dressed on his own, he feels big, but when he breaks a plate by accident, he is told that he is small. How confusing. How will Dan know if he is big or small? Perhaps he is both? Softly and wholeheartedly, Dan expresses the complex feelings of many children his age.

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Critical Praise

 

Eitan is of the generation of illustrators who started a revolution in Israeli illustration; She rescued Israeli illustration from its ideological restraints and charged it with personal and artistic inspiration. In the early eighties, Eitan broke free from the traditional dominance of the line in illustration and developed a pictorial language with a colorful and unique emphasis. Her illustrations are steeped in diverse techniques and are characterized by stylistic freshness. If 'style' is above all 'the fixed form’ - and sometimes the fixed elements, features, and expression…then Ora Eitan eludes the 'fixed' and the stable, refusing to surrender to them.

Tali Tamir, News 1

 

Eitan's art is indeed rooted in childhood. Even when she talks about the means of expression available to her, she unwittingly compares herself to a child in a toy store.

Marit Benisrael

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