The Book of Life

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST     |    READ THE TRANSCRIPT     🕮    Regular listeners will remember my friend Susan Kusel, a librarian/bookseller/author who partners with me frequently to promote Jewish children's literature. In this episode, we discuss Holiday Highlights, a project we set up through the Association of Jewish Libraries. Our expert committee, Amy Lilien-Harper, Robbin Friedman, and Sylvie Shaffer, compile seasonal Holiday Highlights lists representing the best Jewish children's holiday books each Spring and Fall. We tell you all about the project, and about the amazing Passover picture books on the Spring 2022 Holiday Highlights list. Why were we both wearing tiaras during our Zoom call? You'll have to listen to the episode to find out. LEARN MORE: Holiday Highlights Susan Kusel's website Guest Post: How to Support Jewish Children's Literature  SPRING 2022 Holiday Highlights Shabbat Shalom & A New We...

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST     |    READ THE TRANSCRIPT     🕮    When I was interviewed by Lisa Hedger on the Everyone Loved It But Me podcast, I told her about the many issues I have with The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, but I also suggested some alternate titles and urged listeners to seek out books of Jewish joy. Lisa used that part of our conversation in a separate "Book Bits" episode, which you can listen to here. Below are links to some of the titles and resources we discussed. LEARN MORE: Heidi's interview about The Boy in the Striped Pajamas My Completely Unofficial 2022 Sydney Taylor Shortlist (for joyful Jewish book suggestions) Whistle: A New Gotham City Hero by E. Lockhart (on The Book of Life, November 2021 ) The Unfinished Corner by Dani Colman (on The Book of Life, March 2022 ) All-of-a-Kind Family by Sydney Taylor (on The Book of Life, October 2007 ) Aviva vs. the Dybbuk by Mari Lowe  The Sydney Taylor Boo...

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST     |    READ THE TRANSCRIPT     🕮    I was pleased to be a guest on the podcast Everyone Loved It But Me , hosted by Lisa Hedger. I spoke about the many issues I have with the middle grade Holocaust novel The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne. This fall, a sequel will be released, entitled All the Broken Places . I urge you to approach this sequel with great caution. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is rife with historical inaccuracies, impossible scenarios, emotional manipulation, and tone-deaf messaging, and the author has shown only defensiveness in the face of the many criticisms he has received. I don't hold high hopes for the sequel to be any better, and I don't want this author to continue to profit from literary exploitation of the tragedy that was the Holocaust. In my personal opinion, Boyne's books should be put aside and attention should instead be paid to more authentic works of fiction and nonfiction ...

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST     |    READ THE TRANSCRIPT     |    BUY THE BOOK     🕮    The Unfinished Corner, a National Jewish Book Awards finalist, is a graphic novel that challenges a bat mitzvah girl and her group of diverse Jewish friends to finish a corner of the universe left unfinished by God, in order to rid the world of evil. It's a bold premise, brilliantly carried out with a mix of ancient folklore and modern thinking. I was excited to speak with author Dani Colman to learn more. LEARN MORE: Buy The Unfinished Corner Author  Dani Colman's website Colorist Whitney Cogar's website Editor Rebecca "Tay" Taylor's website Illustrator Rachel "Tuna" Petrovicz's website Letterer Jim Campbell's website Vault Comics website  / Wonderbound imprint website CREDITS: Produced by Feldman Children's Library at Congregation B'nai Israel Co-sponsored by the Association of Jewish Libraries Sister ...

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST    |    READ THE TRANSCRIPT     🕮    Today I've got a group interview for you, with three authors whose books each take a different and fascinating angle on dealing with grief. It's a difficult topic to talk about with young people but these books handle it with grace and sensitivity. Tyler Feder, author of the Sydney Taylor Book Award winning graphic memoir for young adults, Dancing at the Pity Party , middle grade novelist Emily Barth Isler, whose debut book is called Aftermath , and returning guest Joanne Levy, who was on the show in October 2020 to talk about Fish Out of Water , is back with her new middle grade novel Sorry for Your Loss , a Sydney Taylor Notable Book. LEARN MORE: Buy Dancing at the Pity Party Author Tyler Feder Tyler's Dad's review of her book on GoodReads Buy Aftermath Author Emily Barth Isler Buy Sorry for Your Loss Author Joanne Levy Joanne's guest post "How to Support Jewish Children's Literatur...

  by Joanne Levy I originally wrote a post in the Jewish Kidlit Mavens Facebook group summing up my thoughts and feelings about getting the word out about Jewish kidlit. A staunch supporter of Jewish kidlit herself, Heidi invited me to expand what she called a "manifesto" for posting here. I truly believe that to end hate, including antisemitism, which is on the rise (again/still) in the world, we need to build empathy in our kids. It’s a long game but I think the best way to be proactive is to get our kids reading widely. To normalize the varied and diverse experiences of contemporary Judaism. Being a Jew who writes books about Jewish kids, I’m always thinking about how to get more books with Jewish characters in the hands of kids. All kids—Jewish and non-Jewish alike. Since I'm an author, by definition, this post is self-serving BUT I've been thinking a lot lately about all Jewish books and getting more of them out into the world. In particular, into mainstream pl...

The Association of Jewish Libraries & StoryTime Solidarity Present:  How to be an Ally to Jewish Patrons and Students (Even in a Non-Jewish Neighborhood) ~~~~~ Sunday, March 20, 2022 1:00PM PT / 4:00PM ET The FBI reports that 60% of all religious hate crimes target Jewish people despite the fact that only 2% of America’s population identifies as Jewish. As librarians and educators, how can we push back against this injustice? Join Storytime Solidarity and the Association of Jewish Libraries for a free workshop on standing in solidarity with the Jewish community. Get answers to the questions you didn’t know you wanted to ask, learn about Jewish diversity, and find out what actions you can take and what books you can buy to help the Jewish community—even if you have no Jewish patrons or students! Presented by librarians Heidi Rabinowitz, Susan Kusel, Rebecca Levitan, and Sylvie Shaffer. Free and open to the public. Register at https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZI...

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST    |    READ THE TRANSCRIPT     🕮    Welcome to this special edition of The Book of Life, recorded as a part of the 2022 Sydney Taylor Book Award Blog Tour! Visit https://jewishlibraries.org/2022-blog-tour/ to find the full schedule of interviews with the gold and silver medalists, published February 7th to 11th, 2022 and available thereafter to read at your convenience. I had the pleasure of speaking with the gold medalists: Susan Kusel and Sean Rubin, author and illustrator of the picture book The Passover Guest , Veera Hiranandani, author of the middle grade novel How to Find What You're Not Looking For , and Aden Polydoros, author of the young adult novel The City Beautiful . I hope you'll enjoy the conversation as much as we did.  LEARN MORE: Buy The Passover Guest Author Susan Kusel's website Susan's Tikkun Olam suggestion: read Jews Don't Count by David Baddiel Illustrator Sean Rubin's website Sean's Tikkun ...

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST     |    READ THE TRANSCRIPT     🕮    Martha Seif Simpson is the chair of the Sydney Taylor Book Award committee of the Association of Jewish Libraries. She joined us to discuss the 2022 winners of the award, which annually recognizes the best Jewish literature for children and teens. AJL is an affiliate of the American Library Association , so the Sydney Taylor Book Awards are announced at ALA's Youth Media Awards press conference, being held virtually this year on January 24, 2022. You can watch a recording of the announcement on ALA's YouTube channel . Here's my unofficial shortlist of deserving books, and here's the official 2022 Sydney Taylor Book Award press release and the printable list of winners, honors, and notable books. You can also scroll down to see all the winning titles listed, with links to any past podcast appearances by the authors on The Book of Life. A week after the officia...

  The Jewish Book Carnival is a monthly roundup of Jewish literary links from across the blogosphere. Sponsored by the Association of Jewish Libraries, it is hosted by a different blog each month and shares book reviews, author interviews, essays, and other blog posts about Jewish books. Visit the Jewish Book Carnival HQ for the upcoming schedule, past Carnivals, and to learn how to participate! Hanukkah and Christmas may be over but this Holiday Heroes interview will still warm your heart. Here on The Book of Life I brought together Lee Wind, author of Red and Green and Blue and White , and Jeff Gottesfeld, author of The Christmas Mitzvah , for a joint interview . Both books are based on inspiring true stories, and I included them both on my Completely Unofficial 2022 Sydney Taylor Shortlist . A Jewish Grandmother reviews The Last Words We Said by Leah Sheier, which is about three close teenage friends, all Jewish from Modern Orthodox homes, trying to deal with the disappearan...

Many years ago, I was on the Association of Jewish Libraries' Sydney Taylor Book Award Committee, and I even chaired the committee for a few years. Those days are long gone, and I am no longer a part of those decisions. However, I still have strong opinions about each year's crop of Jewish kidlit. 2021 offered an inspiring array of Jewish books, with very diverse representation and an encouraging thread of activism, making me want to advocate for more titles than I have time to podcast about. Here then, is my completely unofficial shortlist of titles that I personally feel are deserving of Sydney Taylor Book Award recognition, or at least deserving of your attention. I'll also add the caveat that I did not read every single Jewish children's or YA book that came out this year, so there may be other titles that I would have added to this list if I'd gotten around to reading them. I'm not naming unofficial gold, silver, or notable books -- I'm just saying tha...

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST     |    READ THE TRANSCRIPT     |    BUY LEE'S BOOK     |    BUY JEFF'S BOOK     🕮    For this episode I've paired Red and Green and Blue and White by Lee Wind with The Christmas Mitzvah by Jeff Gottesfeld. These two 2021 holiday picture books are both based on true stories of allyship and they have a lovely synergy.  These two fine people have been Book of Life guests before: You may remember Jeff from February 2020 when he told us about No Steps Behind: Beate Sirota Gordon's Battle for Women's Rights in Japan , and Lee from the June 2020 "Through the Window" diversity exchange episode, when we learned more about queer kidlit. Their new books really uphold the spirit of the holiday season with beautiful stories of bridge-building. The Book of Life now has an AJL "sister podcast," Nice Jewish Books, a show about Jewish fiction for adu...

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST     |    READ THE TRANSCRIPT     |    BUY THE BOOK     🕮    In December 2018 I interviewed Emily Jenkins about her picture book All-of-a-Kind Family Hanukkah . Now Emily's back, in the guise of E. Lockhart, the pen name she uses for her young adult fiction, to talk about her graphic novel Whistle: A New Gotham City Hero , featuring a Jewish teen superhero with enhanced canine superpowers and a Great Dane sidekick named Lebowitz. This episode is sponsored by Every Child a Reader in association with the Children's Book Council, in honor of Children's Book Week, November 8-14, 2021. This year's theme is "Reading is a Superpower!" Take the Superpower Challenge ! Learn all about it HERE . Sponsorship also comes from the Association of Jewish Libraries, and I'm happy to announce that The Book of Life now has an AJL "sister podcast," Nice Jewish Books , a show about Jewish fiction f...

The Association of Jewish Libraries Launches Nice Jewish Books Podcast The Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL) is pleased to announce the launch of Nice Jewish Books, a monthly podcast focusing on adult Jewish fiction. Nice Jewish Books will bring attention to works of literary fiction, genre fiction, and literature in translation, as well as books and authors that have been considered for AJL’s annual Jewish Fiction Award. Nice Jewish Books can be found at https://jewishlibraries.org/nicejewishbooks /. The first episode, available now, features Mary Marks, author of the Quilting Mysteries series, in which Jewish protagonist Martha Rose and her circle of quilting friends seem to bump into dead bodies with alarming frequency. Luckily, they are able use their observational skills, intuition, and persistence to "help" the police catch the killers. In this wide-ranging conversation, host Sheryl Stahl and Mary Marks discuss Jewish practice, the representation of female charact...

"Reading is a Superpower" is the theme of Children's Book Week , celebrated November 8-14, 2021 and sponsored by Every Child a Reader , in association with the Children's Book Council . The Book of Life is happy to be a Children's Book Week Partner . This year's theme is brought to life by the Superpower Challenge , inviting kids to name "a skill, personal trait, or passion that plays an important role in your life, helps you do good in the world, and makes you feel special, happy, and confident."  What's your superpower? Mine is the ability to quickly locate library books based on very minimal descriptions like "It's got a blue cover" or "It had a pumpkin in it." The superpower of Whistle, the subject of November's Book of Life episode, is to communicate with dogs and have the sensory perception of dogs. A superpower of Whistle's creator, E. Lockhart, is to seamlessly add a Jewish neighborhood into Gotham City, m...