The Book of Life

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST     🕮    At Book Expo 2014 in NYC, I interviewed a wide range of publishers about their forthcoming Jewish titles. Hear my chats with reps from: Charlesbridge: Rabbi Benjamin's Buttons by Alice McGinty Image Comics: Noah by Darren Aronofsky Dundurn: Fields of Exile by Dr. Nora Gold , and Stealing Time by Anne Dublin CREDITS: Produced by: Feldman Children's Library at Congregation B'nai Israel   Supported in part by: Association of Jewish Libraries   Theme music: The Freilachmakers Klezmer String Band   Facebook: facebook.com/bookoflifepodcast  Twitter: @bookoflifepod   Photo: Donna Spurlock of Charlesbridge Your feedback is appreciated! Please write to bookoflifepodcast@gmail.com or call our voicemail number at 561-206-2473.

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST    |    BUY THE BOOK     🕮    At Book Expo 2014 I met with author Jacqueline Jules and illustrator Durga Yael Bernhard , creators of the picture book Never Say a Mean Word Again . The story takes place in medieval Spain in the Muslim city of Granada and was inspired by a legend about how the Jewish royal advisor Samuel Ha-Nagid "tore out" a man's angry tongue and gave him a kind one instead. It is a powerful story of conflict resolution, as relevant today as it was centuries ago, and very timely for the High Holidays. CREDITS: Produced by: Feldman Children's Library at Congregation B'nai Israel   Supported in part by: Association of Jewish Libraries Theme music: The Freilachmakers Klezmer String Band   Facebook: facebook.com/bookoflifepodcast  Twitter: @bookoflifepod   Photo: Jacqueline Jules & Durga Yael Bernhard Your feedback is appreciated! Please write to bookoflifepo...

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST    |    BUY THE BOOK     🕮    Sally Wiener Grotta stopped by Congregation B'nai Israel right before a heavy storm, to talk with me about her novel Jo Joe . It's the story of a mixed-race Jewish woman with deep prejudices about the Pennsylvania town where she grew up, and to which she has now returned. CREDITS: Produced by: Feldman Children's Library at Congregation B'nai Israel   Supported in part by: Association of Jewish Libraries Theme music: The Freilachmakers Klezmer String Band   Facebook: facebook.com/bookoflifepodcast  Twitter: @bookoflifepod   Your feedback is appreciated! Please write to bookoflifepodcast@gmail.com or call our voicemail number at 561-206-2473.

The June Jewish Book Carnival is being hosted at the Write Kids' Books! blog by Jennifer Tzivia MacLeod. The Jewish Book Carnival, created by the Association of Jewish Libraries, is a monthly roundup of Jewish literary links from across the blogosphere. You'll find links to Jewish book news, book reviews, author interviews and more.  Check out the June Jewish Book Carnival here: <!--[if gte mso 9]> http://blog.writekidsbooks.org/2014/06/carnival-of-jewish-books.html The July  Carnival will be hosted by Susan Curtis at Susan’s Literary Café.  To participate, please submit links from your own blog to susansliterarycafe@gmail.com by July 13, 2014.  

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST    |    BUY THE BOOK     🕮    Judy Petsonk visited my temple, Congregation B'nai Israel in Boca Raton, to talk about her historical novel, Queen of the Jews . It's the story of Queen Shalom-Zion, a descendent of the Maccabees, who was a real person. Along with her well-received talk for the temple, I got to sit down with Judy for a one-on-one. Enjoy!   CREDITS: Produced by: Feldman Children's Library at Congregation B'nai Israel   Supported in part by: Association of Jewish Libraries   Theme music: The Freilachmakers Klezmer String Band   Facebook: facebook.com/bookoflifepodcast  Twitter: @bookoflifepod   Your feedback is appreciated! Please write to bookoflifepodcast@gmail.com or call our voicemail number at 561-206-2473.

I will be attending BookExpo America this year and I'm very excited! As in past years, I'll be recording interviews for The Book of Life , and I'll be talking to publishers about the Sydney Taylor Book Award (I'm past chair of the award committee, so I like to promote it whenever I can). Here's a message from the current awards chair, Diane Rauchwerger, for all you publishers out there: Entries are now being considered for the 2015 Sydney Taylor Award, which recognizes the best children's literature of Jewish content. We would like to invite you to submit any children's books with a 2014 copyright that meets the criteria below. In order to be considered, a review copy must be sent to each of the nine members of the Sydney Taylor Book Award Committee. No application form is necessary; simply mail the books to each member in a package labeled "Sydney Taylor Book Award Submission." The awards will be announced in January, 2015. To e...

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST    |    VISIT THE INSTITUTE OF SOUTHERN JEWISH LIFE     🕮    Author Debra Winegarten and oral historian Josh Parshall of the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life talk about the Jewish experience of living in Texas, recorded in Houston, TX at the 2013 Association of Jewish Libraries conference.  CREDITS: Produced by: Feldman Children's Library at Congregation B'nai Israel   Supported in part by: Association of Jewish Libraries   Theme music: The Freilachmakers Klezmer String Band   Facebook: facebook.com/bookoflifepodcast  Twitter: @bookoflifepod   Photos: Debra Winegarten and Heidi Estrin Your feedback is appreciated! Please write to bookoflifepodcast@gmail.com or call our voicemail number at 561-206-2473.

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST     🕮    Karen Propp discusses her work in progress, Freestyle , a story of Jewish female swimming champs in Europe during WWII. The unpublished work won the 2013 Sydney Taylor Manuscript Award from the Association of Jewish Libraries.  Freestyle is based on the true story of champion swimmer Judith Deutsch and the Viennese Hakoah swim team of the 1930s, familiar to some from the documentary film  Watermarks . Despite being selected by Austria to swim in the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Deutsch and her teammates boycotted the Olympics to protest the treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany. The novel covers two years in the life of Elly Hirsch,  Propp’s fictional incarnation of Deutsch. The Award committee felt that Freestyle with its strong sense of history, sympathetic characters, and little known story, would appeal to a wide audience and epitomize the ideals of Sydney Taylor’s All of a Kind Family series. Fr...