The Book of Life

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST     |    BUY THE BOOK     🕮    Remember All-of-a-Kind Family ? It's the classic chapter book by Sydney Taylor, of five sisters living on the Lower East Side in the early 20th century. Now Emily Jenkins and Paul O. Zelinsky have created an original picture book based on those same characters, All-of-a-Kind Family Hanukkah . Illustrator Zelinsky attended the 2018 Association of Jewish Libraries conference where he gave us a sneak peek at his artistic process, as you can see in the photo below. I snagged his email address and arranged a conference call with him and author Emily Jenkins, and that's what you'll hear on this podcast. HANUKKAH TREATS FOR YOU: Buzzfeed Quiz : Which All-of-a-Kind Family Sibling Are You? Emily Jenkins' latke recipe Coloring pages based on Paul Zelinsky's art Teaching Guide for All-of-a-Kind Family Hanukkah   CREDITS: Produced by: Feldman Children's ...

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST     |    BUY THE BOOK     🕮    At the 2018 Association of Jewish Libraries conference, I bumped into author Jacqueline Jules . She's been on the podcast before in 2014 to talk about Never Say a Mean Word Again . Her new picture book is Light the Menorah: A Hanukkah Handbook , which offers meditations for candle lighting. We grabbed a quick interview after lunch in the busy dining hall, so you will have a "you are there" experience listening to our conversation about this wonderful new holiday book! Speaking of Jewish rituals like lighting the menorah, the Association of Jewish Libraries has published another list in the Love Your Neighbor series of book lists. List #2 is about Synagogues, Clergy, & Jewish Ritual . The picture books and chapter books on this list will help readers understand more about Jewish practices both in synagogue and in the home. Click here to see the list . CREDITS: Prod...

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST     |    BUY THE BOOK     🕮    Jane Breskin Zalben is an artist/illustrator and the author of over 50 books for children. Her recent picture book, A Moon for Moe and Mo , was featured in the Missing Voice picture book discussion group on Facebook in September 2018. The Missing Voice group was created by another author, Lisa Rose , to bring books about under-represented populations into the limelight. You may be familiar with Lisa's book, Shmulik Paints the Town . I spoke with Jane and Lisa by conference call, in the week following the anti-Semitic attack at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, because I felt it was the right time to talk about stories that model friendships between Jews and non-Jews, and to encourage people to read more books that offer windows into different cultures.  During that same week, I worked with a bunch of my favorite women, my posse of snarky Jewish kidlit nerds f...

SEE LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR LISTS     🕮    In response to the anti-Semitic domestic terrorism that took place at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, PA last Saturday, my friends and I have done what librarians do: we've turned to literature, not for explanations, but for solutions. After 100+ email messages back and forth, we've hammered out a cream-of-the-crop list of "window" books for youth, that we hope will build empathy and understanding in the hearts of non-Jewish readers. There's no knowing whether books like these would have made a difference if read during the childhood of the Pittsburgh shooter, and we can't guarantee that reading them to today's kids will prevent future tragedy. But as the Pirkei Avot, the Ethics of the Fathers, tell us, we are not obligated to complete the work of combating anti-Semitism, but neither are we free to desist from it. We've got to do what we can. As librarians, we know that the right book can make a dif...

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST      |    BUY THE BOOK     🕮    The Girl with the Red Balloon is a magical time travel, historical fiction, kind-of-sort-of Holocaust book that won a Sydney Taylor Honor in the Teen Readers Category for 2018. I met the author, Katherine Locke , at the Association of Jewish Libraries conference in Boston, where we snuck into a side room to talk – please excuse the faint hubbub coming from outside. We discussed not only Katherine’s book, but also her article on Medium.com, “ Thinking about Jewish Children’s Literature in a Time of anti-Semitism .” 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   Patreon: patreon.com/bookoflife Your feedback is appreciated! Ple...

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST      |    BUY THE BOOK     🕮    Before I moved back to Florida from Massachusetts, my friend Barbara Bietz , author of The Sundown Kid: A Southwestern Shabbat , came to Amherst, MA for a workshop about Jewish kidlit. We got together while she was in town and recorded our conversation for you. 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   Patreon: patreon.com/bookoflife 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     🕮    American Golem: The New Adventures of an Old World Mud Monster by Marc Lumer is a new picture book from Apples & Honey Press. I ran into Vicki Weber of Behrman House (the parent company of Apples & Honey) at the Association of Jewish Libraries conference in Boston, MA this June, and grabbed a quick interview about American Golem . You'll notice the loud buzz of conference-goers in the background because we spoke in the dining room after lunch. Hopefully, that will give you a "you are there" feeling! 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 Support The Book of Life by becoming a patron at Patreon.com/bookoflife Your feedback is app...

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST     🕮    The podcast hiatus is over! I'm thrilled to return to my beloved Feldman Children's Library at Congregation B'nai Israel in Boca Raton, Florida, and to The Book of Life podcast! On Monday June 18, 2018 at the 53rd annual conference of the Association of Jewish Libraries in Boston, MA, I participated in a panel discussion of "Social Justice and Jewish Children's Books." Other panelists included author Lesléa Newman , and Horn Book editors Shoshana Flax and moderator Elissa Gershowitz .   As mentioned on the podcast, this post offers some titles in the various categories of books that I spoke about during the panel. These lists are by no means comprehensive. They mostly represent titles in the Feldman Children's Library at Congregation B'nai Israel of Boca Raton, Florida, and the list was compiled by memory without actually visiting the library. My purpose is to offer a few suggestions to get you started on...