"The Story of Shimshi" is no ordinary children's book. It was written with therapeutic objectives in mind. True, the book has a "hero" - a likeable lion named Shimshi. But Shimshi is sick. He is hospitalized and needs to be hooked up to an IV and get chemotherapy. The book tells us all about what happens to Shimshi in the course of his treatment and how he uses his imagination in order to feel better.

The bottom line of the book is not the plot - it is the process that Shimshi goes through, with which sick children identify and from which they draw strength.

The book was created by Cookie Balchar-Yellin, a rehabilitative art therapist at Ezer Mizion's Oranit Guest Home for children with cancer as part of its Donald Berman Rehabilitation Center that offers free therapy sessions for children with cancer and their families. The book is part of a broader sand, playing and bilbiotherapy approach, created when Balchar-Yellin sensed the need for an additional tool to facilitate her therapy for children with cancer.

Speaking to the Lion
Balchar-Yellin has been doing therapy treatments for children with cancer at  Ezer Mizion for six years. "The child and I sit together, one on one. I read the story, asking questions as we go along. Generally, the children want to "speak" with the lion. They ask him questions, and then, in the designated place in the book, they draw a cancerous cell, and then draw how they picture the cell healthy.

"I let them imagine things that are fun for them. Then they do breathing exercises that I show them how to do, while imagining that inside their little body, instead of the sick cells, there are all the pleasant things they drew."

"Three years ago, I started working with children in the hospital," she relates. "I bring them sculpting and art supplies - crayons, different types of paper, glue, sculpting material - and they create things, expressing through their artwork what they feel deep inside. I focus on positive thinking and work with them on "guided imagery".

"In the course of the therapy sessions, I sought another approach, another tool with which to reach the children. I had the core idea of the story in my head, including the illustrations. I typed it up and let a few different people read it and offer their comments. I prepared a few copies of the pages, covering each page with plastic, both in order to protect the book from wear and so that the children can draw erasable pictures on it. I printed up six such books, producing them on my own, and I work with the children, using the book along with a stuffed lion doll that we can "speak with" and incorporate into the session.

The Concept Behind the Book
"I chose a lion as the main character, because the lion is the king of the beasts. If he - the strong hero - can be sick, then anyone can, and if he can overcome his illness, then so can I. I chose the name 'Shimshi' because it derives from the word 'shemesh' - sun, because the sun shines everyday on all of us."

In her book, Balchar-Yellin also animated the IV bag that children with cancer know all too well. She created a character that she calls "Kol-or" - Voice of Light - a colorful little IV bag, with eyes and a mouth that children can play with, manipulating her facial expressions. Kol-or speaks with the lion, suggesting that he play with her, and Shimshi imagines to himself toys, flowers, animals and other nice, positive things, instead of the sick cells in his body.

At this point, Balchar-Yellin gets the sick child actively involved and asks him to draw in the book whatever he sees in his imagination: "Some draw toys, others draw candy, butterflies, all sorts of things they like."

Balchar-Yellin is a resident of Tzur-Yig'al, and she came to art therapy in a very round-about way. In Argentina, the country from which she immigrated to Israel in 1990, she worked as a teacher, an actress, and ran a puppet theater for adults. "I studied acting three years, puppet theater for another three, and also mask therapy. I went to study mask therapy because something inside me wanted to help people with this medium. I learned how to create masks from different materials and to give them a variety of expressions.

"The mask is a three-dimensional metaphor, and through its use, a person can open up and speak about his feelings, dreams and emotional blocks - because when a person puts on a mask, he feels that he is no longer "himself."

She did not get a chance to use the mask technique that she learned, because at that point, she moved to Israel: "Here, I ran acting clubs and had a puppet theater in Ra'anana, but I knew that I needed to work in something with real contact, something closer and more intimate. Mask therapy is conducted on a group level, and I needed something "one on one." So I went to Beit Berel to learn rehabilitative art, and chose to focus on treatment of children, though I also work with adults, because children have unbridled imagination that adults do not have."

Can you attest to the fact that the book helps the children? Do you have some way of measuring the success of the therapy using this tool?

"We're mainly talking about emotional rehabilitation. The objective here is not to bring the child to perfect health, but to help him feel good at whatever point he is at. The therapy strengthens him.

"I work with the patients from their healthiest and strongest point. After a session with me and the book, the child always leaves less angry, less frustrated. Some children need to drink a lot, so I tell them that Shimshi wants to play with them only while they drink, and I suggest to them that they also give Shimshi a drink. We act out plays together with Shimshi and they relate to him all their frustrations. They project their own situation on Shimshi, saying, for example that "Shimshi wants to go home." 

"I worked with a three year old boy who didn't want to get out of his stroller and wanted his mother to be near him all the time. When we played with Shimshi, he told his mother that she can go, and asked Shimshi to help him get out of the stroller.   He took Shimshi's hand, and I took his other hand, he got out of the stroller and started walking around."