The Book of Life

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST     |    READ THE TRANSCRIPT     |    BUY THE BOOK     🕮    Welcome to the 17th annual Sydney Taylor Book Award Blog Tour, taking place February 9-12, 2026! When AJL started this project in 2009, blog tours were all the rage. Today, the concept of a virtual book tour still holds up, bringing awareness of the Sydney Taylor winners to audiences far and wide. I am participating in the Blog Tour by interviewing Caroline Kusin Pritchard and Selina Alko, author and illustrator of The Keeper of Stories , which was a Sydney Taylor Honor Book in the Picture Book category. As a librarian, I love the idea of a library as a keeper of stories, a place where stories and history are kept safe for generations to come. LEARN MORE:  Here’s the schedule for the 2026 Blog Tour Here’s the archive of all past blog tours, beginning in 2009 Caroline Kusin Prichard’s website and Instagram Selina Alko’s website and ...

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST     |    READ THE TRANSCRIPT        🕮    The winners of the 2026 Sydney Taylor Book Awards, recognizing the best Jewish children’s and young adult literature of the year, were announced on January 26, 2026 at the American Library Association’s Youth Media Awards event. Melanie Koss is the current chair of the Sydney Taylor Book Award committee, and she joined me on the podcast to discuss the 2026 winners of the award. LEARN MORE: Sydney Taylor Book Awards The Sydney Taylor Portal  ALA’s YouTube channel , where you can watch a recording of the announcement Heidi’s unofficial 2026 Sydney Taylor shortlist   Get more Jewish kidlit news & calls to action in The Book of Life Substack newsletter   2026 SYDNEY TAYLOR BOOK AWARDS Picture Book Winner: Shabbat Shalom, Let's Rest and Reset  written and illustrated by Suzy Ultman, published by Rise x Penguin Workshop Middle Grade Winner: Neshama...

It's time for my annual unofficial shortlist of potential Sydney Taylor Book Award winners! As you may know, in addition to interviewing authors of Jewish kidlit for many years, I'm a former member and chair of the Association of Jewish Libraries' Sydney Taylor Book Award Committee, and a cofounder of The Sydney Taylor Shmooze  review blog, so I have a deep and abiding interest in seeking out the best Jewish kidlit of the year.  I'm not actually making predictions about what will win; rather, I'm telling you that these are books that I think deserve your attention (with the caveat that while I probably read the majority of Jewish children's or YA books published in 2025, I did not read ALL of them, so there may be other titles I'd consider worthy if I'd had the chance to read them). I've listed the titles within their age categories alphabetically by author's last name.Titles are linked to Bookshop.org for your purchasing convenience ...

A year ago I started a Substack newsletter for The Book of Life Podcast to celebrate the show's 20th anniversary. The free Substack posts include podcast episodes, show notes, transcripts, Jewish kidlit news, and calls to action. A number of listeners have very kindly pledged to upgrade to paid subscriptions to support the show. I am now turning on paid subscriptions, and I'm starting a new bonus segment on The Book of Life, especially for paid subscribers. It's called Share Your Shelf . I'll be asking guests to look at their own bookshelves to share the books that are important to them, or that have an interesting origin story; books they've hung onto or just acquired, their oldest or newest books, or even the books that are actually missing from their shelves. The first Share Your Shelf bonus segment will go out to paid subscribers on January 26th, when I'll also be posting a free podcast episode for everyone, about the winners of the 2026 Sydney Ta...

  LISTEN TO THE PODCAST     |    READ THE TRANSCRIPT       🕮   It’s The Book of Life’s 20th Anniversary! In celebration, here’s a super deluxe retrospective episode, with short clips from every year of the podcast. We’ll start with this anniversary year, 2025, and then move back through time to 2005. HANUKKAH TREATS:  Miniature Zine about the podcast - -  print and fold! folding instructions here Book of Life 20th Anniversary Merch -- sales benefit the Association of Jewish Libraries   LEARN MORE:  Read Podcasting Since the Dawn of Time , my essay on the evolution of the show  Like the clips in this special? Click on the images below to hear the full episodes: CREDITS: Produced by Feldman Children's Library at Congregation B'nai Israel Co-sponsored by the Association of Jewish Libraries Sister podcast: Nice Jewish Books Theme Music: The Freilachmakers Klezmer String Band Newsletter: bookoflif...

    LISTEN TO THE PODCAST     |    READ THE TRANSCRIPT     |    LISTEN TO FUSE 8 N' KATE     🕮    Fuse 8 n’ Kate is a weekly podcast hosted by School Library Journal, in which super-librarian Betsy Bird and her sister Kate evaluate 20+ year old picture books to decide whether they should be considered classics. Since The Book of Life is 20 years old (and hopefully a classic), I asked Betsy and Kate to collaborate on a Hanukkah episode! We did a joint episode that will appear on both our feeds, interviewed each other, and talked about The Borrowed Hanukkah Latkes by Linda Glaser, illustrated by Nancy Cote, published in 1997. Did we decide it was a classic? Listen and find out!  LEARN MORE: Fuse 8 n’ Kate Podcast Buy or Borrow The Borrowed Hanukkah Latkes Linda Glaser’s website Nancy Cote’s website Linda Glaser on The Book of Life in 2006 ( Bridge to America ) and 2014 ( Hannah’s Way ) Betsy’s 2025 recomm...