Yiddish with George and Laura by Ellis Weiner




This shark-tooth-sharp-meat-cleaver of a political satire, Yiddish with George and Laura, depicts George and Laura as if they were Dick and Jane.  A decidedly Yiddish Dick and Jane.  And by Dick I'm not talking Cheney; rather, the monosyllabic, pithy Dick, of the picture-book Dick and Jane fame, an educational classic as once beloved among wholesome, 1950s-era American kindergartners just learning to read, as Elmo is now amongst today's Sesame Streetwise kindergartners aspiring to read.

"See George.  He ... is a big shmegegge."

Yiddish with George and Laura comes replete with an abridged, very selective, Yiddish dictionary of terms in the index, so that children can also learn what certain Yiddish words mean in their respective George and Laura political and I.Q. contexts, and thereby be better equipped to engage the schmucks (and both their literal and political offspring) should they inevitably encounter the nefarious epes a nudwik out there in the real world.

The Yiddish dictionary also provides the proper saliva-spraying pronunciations for each Yiddish entry.  Kleenex, however, are sold separately.

Yiddish words like farshlugginer, finagler, farbissenah and farklent are some of my personal favorites, especially when they're used lampooningly in a George and Laura (and even Jeb!) context.  How awesome is it that with this book, you can finally teach your precious children how to drop "F" bombs on George and Laura all day -- in Yiddish! -- and it's okay!  Because Yiddish "F" bombs don't have the same shameful, societal stigmatized, pejorative connotations that English "F" bombs do -- and, in fact, are actually considered appropriate exclamatory declarations often heard in synagogues throughout the world!  Yiddish "F" words!  What good clean fun for the whole family!

My family values Yiddish with George and Laura immeasurably.  We think it's genius.  I hope your family will discover its skewering political commentary of that bastardized and beyond-abusive and non-law abiding Bush League Presidential Administration very soon too!

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