The Book of Life

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST     |    READ THE TRANSCRIPT     |    VISIT JEWISH BOOK MONTH HUB     🕮    Here's a bonus episode for you, in honor of Jewish Book Month, which is marking its 99th year. Arielle Landau, the program coordinator at the Jewish Book Council, joins me to talk about the Council's special campaign to Celebrate Jewish Books & Support Jewish Authors, and how YOU can participate! Watch my Instagram @BookOfLifePodcast and Facebook for daily Jewish Book Month recommendations, November 24-December 24, 2024. In light of the state of the world, this year's theme is books that model ACTIVISM.   LEARN MORE: Jewish Book Month Celebrate Jewish Books Campaign "Cheering On Jewish Books" video by Heidi with practical tips for supporting Jewish lit Article by Heidi in The Forward about Jewish Book Month Jewish Book Month daily #activism reading rec's on Facebook and Instagram Ariel...

On November 20, 2024, I presented "Cheering On Jewish Books" for Palm Beach County Library, a talk about how to support Jewish literature.  HANDOUT includes: Tips for supporting Jewish books Suggestions of great Jewish books for all ages Resources for learning more   HANDOUT: TinyURL.com/CheeringJewishBooks

NOVEMBER EVENTS JEWISH JOY READING PARTY Auction November 13-20, 2024 Bid at The Artists Against Antisemitism 2nd annual Auction to have me host a private virtual event for you and your friends! BID HERE! CHEERING ON JEWISH BOOKS November 20, 2024 at 7pm ET Free online talk about supporting Jewish literature, in honor of Jewish Book Month! PRE-REGISTER HERE!

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST     |    READ THE TRANSCRIPT     |    BUY / BORROW RYU    |    BUY / BORROW GOLEMCRAFTERS     🕮    For the month of November 2024, we've got a 2-part series, CREATURE DOUBLE FEATURE: ANTISEMITISM AND THE SUPERNATURAL . Our guest for Part II is Japanese American Jewish author Emi Watanabe Cohen. Her debut novel was The Lost Ry ū (about dragons), and her sophomore novel is Golemcrafters (about golems, of course).  I loved The Lost Ry ū so much that I volunteered to review it for The Sydney Taylor Shmooze blog , because I wanted to point out a moment of allyship that touched my soul. Then, along came Golemcrafters. I must admit I was wary at first, because golems are kind of overdone, but this book drew me in even more than The Lost Ry ū , with how much it mirrored my own emotional response to antisemitism. Both of these boo...

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST     |    READ THE TRANSCRIPT     |    BUY / BORROW MONSTER    |    BUY / BORROW WEREWOLF     🕮    For the month of November 2024, we've got a 2-part series, CREATURE DOUBLE FEATURE: ANTISEMITISM AND THE SUPERNATURAL . Our first guest is Deke Moulton, author of Don't Want to Be Your Monster (about Jewish vampires) and Benji Zeb Is a Ravenous Werewolf (about Jewish werewolves). These middle grade fantasy novels go beyond simple adventures with supernatural heroes. I love how they both delve deeply into the very nature of prejudice. I love how they both imagine worlds in which kids defeat hate. AND they are also fun, fast paced magical adventure stories. Creature Double Feature Part II is an interview with Emi Watanabe Cohen about her dragon and golem middle grade novels, The Lost Ryū and Golemcrafters , which make great companions to ...

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST     |    READ THE TRANSCRIPT     |    BUY / BORROW NOT NOTHING    |    BUY / BORROW GETTING TO SORRY     🕮    There's a website called IsItAJewishHolidayToday.com , which gives you a simple YES or NO answer, and if you go to that website during the month of October 2024, the answer is going to be YES quite a lot of the time. In honor of this holiday-packed month, I've got a 2-part series for you. I'm calling it FESTIVE FRIENDS , because each episode features a pair of friends talking about books relevant to our fall holidays. Here in Part I, the Festive Friends are Gayle Forman, author of Not Nothing , and Marjorie Ingall, author of Getting to Sorry . While neither of these books are explicitly about Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur, they are both about teshuvah, growth, and the art of apology, perfect for this season. I invited this duo not only becaus...

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST     |    READ THE TRANSCRIPT     |    BUY / BORROW THE BOOK     🕮    October 2024 is packed with Jewish holidays, so we've got a 2-part series for you to celebrate: Festive Friends. In each episode, we hear from a pair of friends about their books that will help us celebrate the Jewish holidays. In Festive Friends Part I we heard from Gayle Forman, author of Not Nothing , and Marjorie Ingall, author of Getting to Sorry . Here in Festive Friends Part II, we meet Erica Lyons and Christina Matula. Lately, Kids of mixed heritage have finally been getting their mirror books, and a great example is Erica and Christina's new picture book Mixed-Up Mooncakes , about a Chinese Jewish family celebrating the Mid Autumn Festival and Sukkot. I love the cozy atmosphere of this book, with its double harvest festival fun; and I love the comfortable way in which the Chinese and Jewish...

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST     |    READ THE TRANSCRIPT    |    CHECK OUT "NICE JEWISH BOOKS" PODCAST     🕮    At the Association of Jewish Libraries 2024 annual conference in San Diego, CA, I met up with Sheryl Stahl, host of our sister podcast, Nice Jewish Books. Inspired by the cartoon above, Sheryl and I interviewed our friends and colleagues about their Jewish "emotional support books" and the results turned into this podcast episode (cross-posted on Nice Jewish Books). We got a very wide variety responses, listed below in case you'd like to read any of the books that are so meaningful to your fellow Jewish book-lovers. ENTER THE DRAWING Need a tote bag to carry around your emotional support books? Enter our drawing! Post a review of The Book of Life or Nice Jewish Books, or BOTH, on social media or on any podcast player such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to podcas...

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST     |    READ THE TRANSCRIPT     🕮    Four years ago in 2020 at the height of the pandemic, I ran a 3-part series called The Mitzvah of Voting . Here we are in 2024 in a presidential election year again and defending our democracy is more important than ever! Here's an edited encore presentation of that 2020 podcast, with all three parts combined and streamlined. You'll hear inspiring words and calls to action from some of your favorite authors, recorded in 2020 but as relevant as ever. We cap it off with Sarah Aroeste's Ladino song "Gracia" (English lyrics below), a tribute to the medieval Sephardic heroine, Doña Gracia Nasi who lived in the 1500's and saved hundreds of Jews from the Inquisition. The theme of the song is that activists of the past inspire us to activism in our own time. I hope you will be inspired to VOTE! RESOURCES SUGGESTED BY GUESTS: Hold the Line: A Guide to Defending Democracy T...

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST     |    READ THE TRANSCRIPT     🕮    When I read Karen Jensen's "Treatise on the State of Middle Grade and Young Adult Publishing Today" on her Teen Librarian Toolbox blog in School Library Journal, I was super impressed with the level of detail of her research... but also alarmed at the many difficulties she described facing the industry right now. I interview middle grade authors pretty frequently on The Book of Life, but I decided it was time to think about the genre as a whole, and to do what I could to give it my support. So I invited two people who could help answer my questions: W hat defines a middle grade book? What are the challenges to publishing for this age group? What is the state of middle grade literature today? What can we do to help? My guests are: Karen Jense n , librarian, author of "Treatise on the State of Middle Grade and Young Adult Publishing Today" and creator of the Teen Li...

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST     |    READ THE TRANSCRIPT     |    BUY / BORROW ADAM    |    BUY / BORROW STEVE     🕮    Two incredible authors, Adam Gidwitz and Steve Sheinkin, joined me to talk about their most recent books, Max in the House of Spies and Impossible Escape . As many listeners know, I tend to avoid Holocaust books because I've kind of overdosed on them during a long career of working with Jewish children's literature... but both of these books are SO good that I couldn't ignore them. Max in the House of Spies is middle grade historical fantasy fiction and Impossible Escape is young adult nonfiction. They are very different books, but they also make a great pairing... as do Adam and Steve, who are friends in real life. Impossible Escape was a 2024 Sydney Taylor Honor Book (young adult category). It remains to be seen whether Max in the House of Spi...

  Happy Pride Month! Despite the ongoing attempts to silence LGBTQ+ voices, children's and young adult publishing has been creating better and better books with joyful representation of queer characters, and Jewish books are no exception. Here are a few of my recent favorites; for more, please see the "Queer Jews" tag in my Diverse Jewish Kidlit catalog on LibraryThing . Joyful Song: A Naming Story by Lesléa Newman, illustrated by Susan Gal, Levine Querido, 2024    |    BUY    |    BORROW Zachary and his two multicultural mommies walk their new baby girl to synagogue to reveal her name to the community, picking up diverse friends along the way. Suffused with rainbow light, peopled with kind and supportive neighbors of many backgrounds, and bursting with family love, the lyrical text and stunning illustrations combine to create an instant classic. A breath of fresh air, and a beautiful antidote to antisemitism. Benji Zeb is a Ravenous We...

BUY or BORROW these books Two Sydney Taylor Book Award winners, Veera Hiranandani and Vesper Stamper, have joined forces to create the perfect book for fathers and grandfathers: The Greatest (Random House Studio, 2024), a picture book about how "the power of love makes us all the greatest to somebody."  An old man reflects that although he feels perfectly ordinary, his grandchildren act like he's the greatest grandfather in the world. We see their loving interactions as they play and eat and and build together, against an understated but fully present backdrop of Jewish home life and holidays. We see growth, as the teenage grandson puts aside his phone and starts to participate in the fun along with his younger sisters. In the end, the grandfather realizes that "Maybe love is like a mirror and it's reflected back and forth until it glows so bright, everything is surrounded by that light." A quiet, lovely ode to l'dor vador, the continuity of generatio...

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST    |    READ THE TRANSCRIPT    |    BUY OR BORROW THE BOOK     🕮    Joyful Song: A Naming Story is Lesléa Newman's newest picture book, and once again she's paired up with the amazing Susan Gal. This dynamic duo brought us Here Is the World in 2014 and Welcoming Elijah in 2020. Their new 2024 book is about a baby naming at synagogue, and about the diverse and loving community that welcomes the little girl into the world. The two-mom family makes it a great book for Pride Month, too. LEARN MORE: Lesléa Newman's website Susan Gal's website Susan's other Jewish book, The Tower of Life by Chana Stiefel Roller Coaster Rabbit , the Disney film Susan worked on Heidi's Jewish kidlit wish list Lesléa's past appearances on The Book of Life: Welcoming Elijah, 2020 Social Justice and Jewish Children's Books, 2018 Ketzel and Mom, 2016 Here Is the World, 2015 JEWISH AMERICAN HERITAGE MONTH, Friends & A...