The Book of Life

So my friend Laurel Snyder (who was on The Book of Life in August, 2008 , and whose book Baxter, The Pig Who Wanted to Be Kosher was mentioned in the BEA09 episode) made the mistake of giving me a soapbox upon which to climb. She's one of the bloggers at From The Mixed-Up Files of Middle-Grade Authors, and she wanted to do a piece on Jewish middle-grade books so she emailed me a bunch of questions. Took me all day, but I wrote up some ideas and suggestions, which you can read here at the interview, (Sometimes-Not-So) All-of-a-Kind Families . There's an interesting discussion going in the comments section, too -- feel welcome to join in!

Jonathan Papernick is the author of Who by Fire, Who by Blood and The Ascent of Eli Israel . His new book of short stories is entitled There Is No Other: Stories of Faith, Love and Heartache . Jon kindly agreed to answer some questions for us about his new book. Jon, please give us a brief overview of your book of short stories, There Is No Other . The stories in my new collection are set in Brooklyn, Israel, and Massachusetts and deal with issues of love, faith, relationships and God. Most of the stories deal explicitly with Jewish themes while others deal with the complications of modern relationships. The characters in each of the stories are searching for that other in their life, whether spiritual or physical -- sometimes finding that other, sometimes failing to. The younger characters in my collection tend to struggle with tradition and faith and grapple with Judaism and how to fit it in his traditions of their lives, while the older characters tend to struggle with th

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST     🕮    Forthcoming books of from Judaic publishers discovered at Book Expo America 2010 in NYC! The Crown of Aleppo: The Mystery of the Oldest Hebrew Bible Codex by Hayim Tawil & Bernard Schneider, JPS Jewish Choices, Jewish Voices series by JPS Sara Finds a Mitzva by Rebeka Simhaee, Hachai The Aleph-Bais Trip on the Aleph-Bais Ship by Chani Altein, Hachai I'm God; You're Not: Observations on Organized Religion and Other Disguises of the Ego by Lawrence Kushner, Jewish Lights Sacred Treasure--The Cairo Genizah: The Amazing Discoveries of Forgotten Jewish History in an Egyptian Synagogue Attic by Rabbi Mark Glickman, Jewish Lights Confronting Scandel: How Jews Can Respond When Jews Do Bad Things by Dr. Erica Brown, Jewish Lights Communities of Purpose, Lives of Meaning: Shaping American Judaism and Jewish Identity in the 21st Century by Barry Shrage, Jewish Lights How to Be a Perfect Stranger: The Essential Religious Etiquette Handbook e