Shlomo Abas

Shlomo Abas (born 8 February 1948) is a popular Israeli children's author, editor and adapter of folk tales. His work includes original children's stories, as well as collections and adaptations of fables, legends, riddles and jokes. He has published 170 books.

Life and career Abas studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He began writing children's stories at the age of 29. His first stories were originally told to his children, before being published in Davar LaYeladim, a children magazine in Hebrew, in 1978. Abas also worked as an editor at the Agur publishing house, where he began in 1986 as editor of its children's books department.

Works and themes Abas has published collections of folk tales, fables, legends, riddles and jokes, alongside original children's stories. His first books,There Is a Monster in the Lake (1980), Naama and the Pacifier (1981), Tusa-Tusa-Matatosa (1983), and The White Bird (1984), were published by Sifriat Poalim.

One of Abas's works to appear in English was The Sages of Chelm and the Moon, published by Green Bean Books in 2019 and illustrated by Omer Hoffmann. The book is a retelling of a traditional Chelm folktale about the inhabitants of the legendary town attempting to solve the problem of the disappearing moon. The original Hebrew version of the book (סיפורם הבלתי נשכח של חכמי חלם) published in 2016 by Agur Publishing and Modan Publishing, is considered one of the foundational works of children's storytelling in Israel.

Abas also adapted a traditional Yiddish tale in Tailor, Coat and Story, using the story of a worn coat passed from person to person to introduce children to the idea of reuse and recycling.

Abas has worked to establish fairy tales and folk tales as a central part of Israeli children's literature and has long researched traditional stories and legends. He frequently collects stories from elderly people throughout Israel, who tell him tales they heard during their childhood. He also collects stories at international conferences attended by anthropologists and other enthusiasts of folk tales.

He has published 170 books,

Recognition and reception In 2021, Abas received a lifetime-achievement award from the Israel Center for Education Innovation for his contribution to Hebrew children's literature. Dan Futerman, director-general of the Israel Center for Innovation in Education, called Abas an excellent writer who had made a lasting mark on children's and young adult literature in Israel over decades of work. According to Futerman, "Abas combines original writing and creativity in an exceptional way with a remarkable ability to retell stories, legends and jokes in his unique and entertaining style. There is hardly a child in Israel who has not read one of Shlomo Abas's excellent works. In our classroom libraries, which contain hundreds of books in each class, many books written by him can be found, and they are among the most popular and widely read books." His work has also been discussed in the Hebrew children's-literature journal ספרות ילדים ונוער, including reviews and critical discussions of his adaptations of traditional stories and collections of folk tales.

Personal life Abas was born in Nesher, near Haifa, into a working-class family. He has four children, three sons and a daughter including children's author Michael Abas and pianist Elisha Abas. Abas is a grandfather of eight and lives in Timrat in northern Israel.