{"id":321638,"date":"2025-11-27T14:07:46","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T14:07:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/uncategorized\/from-strangers-to-friends-to-co-authors-call-me-gebyanesh\/"},"modified":"2025-11-27T14:07:46","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T14:07:46","slug":"from-strangers-to-friends-to-co-authors-call-me-gebyanesh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=321638","title":{"rendered":"From Strangers to Friends to Co-Authors: CALL ME GEBYANESH"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><em><strong>by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.arleneschenkerwrites.com\/\">Arlene Rosenfeld Schenker<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/store.behrmanhouse.com\/index.php\/call-me-gebyanesh.html\">CALL ME GEBYANESH<\/a> is based on the real-life experiences of a girl, Gebyanesh Addisu, who immigrated from Ethiopia to Israel with her family when she was seven-years-old.<\/p>\n<p>Although Jewish, she struggled to fit in with her different skin color and very different culture. When I first met her on a trip to Israel ten years ago, she was a high school student and greatly impressed me with her fluent English, her modesty, and her love of learning. We lost touch for a while, but resumed correspondence some years later, and when I approached her to collaborate with me on her immigration story, she was enthusiastic. We met virtually about twenty times, and when she told me about her teacher giving her a new Israeli name on her very first day of third grade, I knew we had a hook. This incident sent Gebby on a roller coaster of emotions and a search for her identity until she was a young adult\u2014when she finally had the courage to reclaim her name and her Ethiopian heritage.<\/p>\n<p>Many authors write books about living people without collaborating or co-authoring. If the subject already has a lot written about them, it may not be necessary to work directly with them to create a picture book from their story.<\/p>\n<p>However, I feel extremely lucky to have been able to get Gebby\u2019s story directly from her and to learn first-hand about her struggles and eventual triumphs. So when my editor advised naming Gebby as a co-author to give the book more authenticity, I was happy to do so. Though I did all the writing, it is Gebby\u2019s story, and she put in many hours with me crafting it into a picture book.<\/p>\n<p><em>P.S. Gebby is now 27 and a graduate student in Ancient History at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. I am so grateful that we have become close, life-long friends.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/store.behrmanhouse.com\/index.php\/call-me-gebyanesh.html\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"20479\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/taralazar.com\/2025\/08\/12\/call-me-gabyanesh\/callme\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/taralazar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/callme.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"1156,1500\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"CALLME\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/taralazar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/callme.jpg?w=231\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/taralazar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/callme.jpg?w=490\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-20479\" src=\"https:\/\/taralazar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/callme.jpg?w=490\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"519\" srcset=\"https:\/\/taralazar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/callme.jpg?w=400 400w, https:\/\/taralazar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/callme.jpg?w=800 800w, https:\/\/taralazar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/callme.jpg?w=116 116w, https:\/\/taralazar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/callme.jpg?w=231 231w, https:\/\/taralazar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/callme.jpg?w=768 768w, https:\/\/taralazar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/callme.jpg?w=789 789w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Arlene Rosenfeld Schenker is giving away a copy of <a href=\"https:\/\/store.behrmanhouse.com\/index.php\/call-me-gebyanesh.html\">CALL ME GEBYANESH<\/a> to one lucky blog reader.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Leave a comment below and good luck!<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Arlene Rosenfeld Schenker CALL ME GEBYANESH is based on the real-life experiences of a girl, Gebyanesh Addisu, who immigrated from Ethiopia to Israel with her family when she was seven-years-old. Although Jewish, she struggled to fit in with her different skin color and very different culture. When I first met her on a trip [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":321639,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[96677],"tags":[1254,148975,6450,148976,8200],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-321638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-picture-books","tag-call","tag-coauthors","tag-friends","tag-gebyanesh","tag-strangers"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>From Strangers to Friends to Co-Authors: CALL ME GEBYANESH - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=321638\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"From Strangers to Friends to Co-Authors: CALL ME GEBYANESH - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"by Arlene Rosenfeld Schenker CALL ME GEBYANESH is based on the real-life experiences of a girl, Gebyanesh Addisu, who immigrated from Ethiopia to Israel with her family when she was seven-years-old. Although Jewish, she struggled to fit in with her different skin color and very different culture. 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