The Book of Life

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST     |    READ THE TRANSCRIPT     🕮    In celebration of May’s Jewish American Heritage Month (aka #JAHM) and The Book of Life’s 20th year of podcasting, I’m re-releasing the eighth-ever episode of the show, from July 2006. The theme was “The Book of Life in America.” In the early years of the show, each episode featured multiple guests, and topics ranged beyond books to Jewish music, film, and web. In 23 minutes and 12 seconds, this episode packs in five fantastic guests. While the sound quality is less consistent than today, the warmth and enthusiasm of the interviews was a sign of things to come. If you enjoy this blast from the past, check out other past episodes of The Book of Life. Click on Archive in the sidebar at Bookoflifepodcast.com , or just go to the episode list on your podcast player and keep on scrolling down, down, down. LEARN MORE: JewishAmericanHeritage.org offers info, resources, a...

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST     |    READ THE TRANSCRIPT     |    BUY / BORROW THE BOOK     🕮    Terry LaBan is an alternative cartoonist, a graphic recorder (we'll talk about what that means later), and now he's written his first graphic novel, called Mendel the Mess Up. I'm going to borrow the description from the starred review in Publishers Weekly. They said "Put Fiddler on the Roof and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum in a blender, add a jigger or two of Seinfeld, and the result is this boisterous and affirming graphic novel." Doesn't that sound amazing?  LEARN MORE: Buy or borrow Mendel the Mess-Up Terry LaBan’s  author website and graphic recording website  Terry’s Tikkun Olam suggestion: support HIAS, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society Get bonus content for this episode on Substack Terry’s reading recommendations: o The Story of the Jews : A 4000 Year Adventure by Stan ...

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST     |    READ THE TRANSCRIPT    |    BUY / BORROW THE BOOK     🕮    A Feather, a Pebble, a Shell is a lovely meditation on the natural landscape of Israel, written and illustrated by Miri Leshem-Pelly. Miri's voice is calm and dreamy, and I could hear birds chirping and dogs barking in the background as she spoke. Our conversation was both fun and serious. We talked about art, nature, books, Instagram challenges... and also about the war in Israel and its impact on humans and animals. LEARN MORE: Buy or borrow A Feather, a Pebble, a Shell Miri Leshem-Pelly's website Miri's Instagram Activity Guide for A Feather, a Pebble, a Shell Ravensburger jigsaw puzzle with Miri's art Tikkun olam suggestion: support the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel Reading recommendations: o All Eyes on Alexandra by Anna Levine o A Hoopoe Says Oop by Jamie Kiffel-Alcheh o Fast Asleep in a Little Vil...

Photo from MassLive Next Year in the White House: Barack Obama's First Presidential Seder, written by Richard Michelson and illustrated by E.B. Lewis, is a nonfiction picture book that gives us the true backstory of how Passover first came to be celebrated in the White House. It's a stunning book; it received starred reviews from Kirkus and Booklist, and was named to the Association of Jewish Libraries' Spring 2025 Holiday Highlights list. Because this is a true story, I was able to interview one of the "characters" -- Eric Lesser, seen in the photo above, walking with President Obama. Lesser worked on the Obama campaign trail in 2008, and later became a White House aide. He's also served as a Massachusetts State Senator. He agreed to answer ten questions about the events covered in Next Year in the White House. I didn't have time for an audio interview, but you can read his answers below. LEARN MORE: Buy or borrow Next Year in the White House Websites o...

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST     |    READ THE TRANSCRIPT     |    BUY / BORROW THE BOOK     🕮    Dara Horn is the author of 5 Jewish novels for adults, the provocatively titled nonfiction essay collection People Love Dead Jews , and now a graphic novel for kids: One Little Goat: A Passover Catastrophe . She writes brilliant, insightful articles for The Atlantic and other publications which set my brain on fire when I read them. I recommend you run out and read everything she's ever written. But before you do, listen to this interview! LEARN MORE: Dara Horn’s website Buy or borrow One Little Goat: A Passover Catastrophe Buy or borrow People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present Listen to the 7-part podcast Adventures with Dead Jews Buy or borrow Dara’s most recent novel, Eternal Life Dara’s short story “Shtetl World” Selected Articles by Dara Horn: o “Is Holocaust Education Making Antisemitism W...

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST     |    READ THE TRANSCRIPT     |    BUY / BORROW THE BOOK     🕮     Night Owls is an paranormal YA romance adventure about Clara and Molly, two estries who run an art house cinema in the Village in New York City. In case you're wondering, estries are Jewish owl-shifting bread-eating female vampires! This book is my new favorite, and I'm not the only one. This debut novel won gold from the Sydney Taylor Book Award AND the National Jewish Book Award! The story is fun and fast paced, it's eery and emotional, and it's got characters I want to hang out with even if they would probably be dangerous to know.  LEARN MORE: A.R. Vishny's website Buy or borrow Night Owls Conversation about American Girl dolls: A.R. Vishny's Hey Alma article , Dolls of Our Lives podcast , and  The Book of Life's 2009 interview  More about the plays "Indecent" and "God of Vengeance" Fant...

  I am honored to be a guest on The Children's Book Podcast , founded and hosted by my friend Matthew Winner, a school librarian in Maryland. You can listen to it here: Past Book of Life episodes mentioned in this interview, in order of appearance: Finn and Ezra's Bar Mitzvah Time Loop with Josh Levy, February 2025 The Jake Show with Josh Levy, August 2023 One of a Kind: The Life of Sydney Taylor with Rich Michelson, January 2025 Our Jewish Emotional Support Books, September 2024 When the Angels Left the Old Country with Sacha Lamb, January 2023 Zoe Rosenthal Is Not Lawful Good with Nancy Werlin, August 202 "Books in the Time of Coronavirus" series, 2020 The Mitzvah of Voting, August 2024 The Book of Life Tells Stories with Simms Taback, August 2006 Matthew Winner has been podcasting since 2013, and since his show is weekly, he’s racked up about 900 episodes. His podcast features insightful and sincere interviews with authors, illustrators, and everyone invol...

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST     |    READ THE TRANSCRIPT     |    BUY THE BOOK     🕮    Finn & Ezra's Bar Mitzvah Time Loop by Joshua S. Levy is a 2025 Sydney Taylor Honor Book, and I'm thrilled to interview my friend Josh as part of the Sydney Taylor Book Award Blog Tour. February 10-14, 2025, winning authors and illustrators will be interviewed on various blogs, podcasts, and Bookstagram accounts, and of course the interviews will remain available for you to enjoy at any time. Check BookOfLifePodcast.com for links. Be sure to listen past the credits to hear our extended conversation about Doctor Who! LEARN MORE: Buy / borrow Finn & Ezra's Bar Mitzvah Time Loop Joshua S. Levy's website Josh's 2023 appearance on the podcast to talk about The Jake Show My list of Jewish time travel books Buy / borrow Josh's favorite Jewish book: As a Driven Leaf by Milton Steinberg Buy / borrow Heidi...

The Sydney Taylor Book Award will be showcasing its 2025 honorees with a Blog Tour, February 10-14, 2025! Interviews with winning authors and illustrators will appear on a variety of blogs, podcasts, and Bookstagram accounts. Interviews will appear on the dates listed, and will remain available to read at your own convenience. Below is the schedule for the 2025 Sydney Taylor Book Award Blog Tour. Please follow the links to visit the hosting blogs on or after their tour dates, and be sure to leave them plenty of comments! Right now, the links below lead to the homepage of each blog. Note that after the blog tour is over, I'll update the links to go directly to the interview posts. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2025 Deborah Bodin Cohen and Kerry Olitzky , and Stacey Dressen McQueen , authors and illustrator of An Etrog from Across the Sea Sydney Taylor Book Award in the Picture Book Category at Picture Books Help Kids Soar Sammy Savo s, author/illustrator of The Girl Who Sang: A Holocau...

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST     |    READ THE TRANSCRIPT     🕮    The winners of the 2025 Sydney Taylor Book Awards, recognizing the best Jewish children's and young adult literature of the year, were announced on January 27, 2025 at the American Library Association's Youth Media Awards event. Aviva Rosenberg is the current chair of the Sydney Taylor Book Award committee, and she joined us to discuss the 2025 winners of the award. LEARN  MORE: Sydney Taylor Book Awards ALA's YouTube channel , where you can watch a recording of the announcement Heidi's unofficial 2025 Sydney Taylor shortlist Get more Jewish kidlit news & calls to action in The Book of Life Substack newsletter 2025 SYDNEY TAYLOR BOOK AWARDS Scroll down to see all the winning titles listed, with links to any past podcast appearances by the authors on The Book of Life. FYI, the Sydney Taylor Book Award Blog Tour will take place in early Feb...

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST     |    READ THE TRANSCRIPT     |    BUY / BORROW THE BOOK     🕮    Sydney Taylor was the first author to write kids books that served as windows into Jewish life, not just mirrors. Her All-of-a-Kind Family series was game changing. These were the first books about Jewish characters to become popular with readers of all backgrounds, and they are still popular today. Jo Taylor Marshall, Sydney's daughter, sponsors the Sydney Taylor Book Awards that recognize the best Jewish kidlit each year. And now, Richard Michelson has written a picture book biography of Sydney Taylor. It's called One of a Kind . I spoke with both of them at the 2024 Association of Jewish Libraries conference in San Diego, where we were celebrating the 120th birthday of Sydney Taylor. If you'd like to hear more from Jo after listening to this podcast, you're in luck! I recorded an oral history with...

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST     |    READ THE TRANSCRIPT     |    VISIT KARBEN.COM     🕮    Appropriately, as we kick off this podcast's twentieth anniversary year, in this episode we are going to think about change and continuity. We say goodbye to an old friend, Joni Sussman, who is retiring after twenty years of leading the Jewish children's publishing company Kar-Ben. And we'll say hello to a new friend, Fran Greenman-Schmitz, who will be taking up the reins at Kar-Ben. I've been in this business a long time, so I remember when Joni started at Kar-Ben! This is her fourth live conference interview on the show, and of course it's Fran's first. Joni is the winner of the Sydney Taylor Body of Work Award , for her many contributions to the field of Jewish kidlit. To give you some context, the oldest publisher of Jewish books in English is the Jewish Publication Society , founded in 1888, but Kar-Ben is ...

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST    |    READ THE TRANSCRIPT     🕮    For Hanukkah 2024, I got you a Jewish Book Advocacy Kit! Let me explain. My local public library invited me to give an online talk in honor of Jewish Book Month. As I thought about what to say, I remembered great advice from my friend, author Liza Wiemer , about all the small simple things that anyone can do to support Jewish literature - and bingo, I had my topic. Here's an edited recording of that talk I gave, with practical, actionable tips, and suggestions for Jewish books you'll love. If you'd like to see my slideshow, you can watch the same talk on YouTube . And be sure to check out this very useful presentation handout . For even more books you'll love, check out my annual unofficial Sydney Taylor Book Award shortlist to see what I think is the best Jewish kidlit of 2024, at bookoflifepodcast.com. Happy Hanukkah, Happy New Year, and Happy Reading! LEARN MORE: YouTube video of...

Jewish Book Month takes place during the 30 days leading up to Hanukkah. This year, the celebration was held November 24-December 24, 2024.  Last year I posted daily #JewishJoy reading recommendations. While joy is still extremely important, this year my focus is #ACTIVISM. These books all feature real or fictional people who are great role models for taking action to make the world a better place. Each title is linked to a past interview on The Book of Life or a book review on The Sydney Taylor Shmooze . November 24, 2024 NOT NOTHING by Gayle Forman, a middle grade novel about rising to the occasion of your own life. November 25, 2024 ABZUGLUTELY: BATTLING, BELLOWING BELLA ABZUG , a picture book biography of the Jewish feminist activist and Congresswoman. November 26, 2024 THE DO MORE CLUB by Dana Kramaroff, a middle grade novel about a Jewish kid creating an activist club at school to spread kindness.  November 27, 2024 ONE SMALL SPARK: A TIKKUN OLAM STORY by Ruth Spiro...

The word "podcast" was coined in 2004. Just a year later, The Book of Life dropped its first episode! On December 21, 2005, I posted for the first time: a 14 minute 17 second Hanukkah episode that packed in two author interviews, a CD review, and a reflection by my temple’s rabbi. You can still hear it HERE . The audio is a bit scratchy - I was recording remote interviews with a tiny microphone that went between my ear and the phone! - but the excitement was palpable. I was hooked.  I'll be sharing more podcast history and finding lots of ways to celebrate throughout 2025. First up: Substack!   Substack is a newsletter platform. You can subscribe to my Substack to get show notes, episode transcripts, Jewish kidlit news, and occasional calls to action delivered directly to your inbox! It's interactive too - you can comment and join the conversation.  I hope this will make it even more convenient for you to share my Jewish kidlit journey with me! Please subscribe at boo...