The Book of Life

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST      |    READ THE TRANSCRIPT     🕮    Honeycake Magazine is a new Jewish magazine for kids ages 2 to 6. Creator Anna Caplan guest posted on The Book of Life about the magazine in May 2019. Now here's our podcast interview, in which I spoke to Anna about her inspiration for Honeycake and her plans for its future. Want your own copy of Honeycake? Go to HoneycakeMagazine.com and click on the Get the Magazine button . Order by November 17, 2019 to get your copy in time for Hanukkah. 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 Discussion Group: Jewish Kidlit Mavens Facebook Page: facebook.com/bookoflifepodcast      Twitter: @bookoflifepod   Support the Podcast: Ways to Donate  ...

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST      |    READ THE TRANSCRIPT     |    BUY IRVING / MARTIN     🕮    We are in a golden age of picture book biographies, and one prolific biographer is Nancy Churnin . She's got half a dozen bios out and more on the way, and each one is inspiring in its own way. Nancy attended the 2019 Association of Jewish Libraries conference to take part in the author luncheon, where she represented her Jewish interest books, Irving Berlin: The Immigrant Boy Who Made America Sing , and Martin & Anne: The Kindred Spirits of Dr Martin Luther King Jr and Anne Frank . I was happy to snag this live interview with her during the conference. Be sure to explore Nancy's website for the teacher guides and projects she describes in our interview, as well as her blog The Kids Are All Write . When asked for Tikkun Olam recommendations, Nancy suggested supporting Room to Read , a ...

During the 2019 High Holiday season, the image above was posted on Facebook by We Need Diverse Books , the nonprofit that seeks to build "a world in which all children can see themselves in the pages of a book." This is a big deal. It's a big deal because for a long time, the kidlit diversity discussion has mostly left Jews out in the cold. A perfect example happened recently at a major diversity workshop aimed at librarians. A Jewish friend who attended reported that religious diversity was barely touched upon (a single slide referenced Muslim literature) and that Judaic books were completely absent from a discussion that covered a wide range of marginalized groups from African Americans to Latinx, Native Americans, LGBT, and even the Neurodiverse community.  While a sense of fairness demands that Jewish titles be included in diversity discussions, there's a more urgent need than that. Quoting the We Need Diverse Books website, children "suffer from not s...

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST     🕮    In May 2019 I posted an interview with Jonathan Auxier , the author of Sweep: The Story of a Girl and Her Monster . In our interview we talked about the book, of course, but we also talked about our favorite board games. I met Jonathan at the 2019 Association of Jewish Libraries conference where he'd come to accept his Sydney Taylor Book Award, and we got to play one of those games together along with a roomful of other authors, illustrators, and librarians. Here's your chance to listen in as we play a round of Superfight: A Game of Absurd Arguments . First we'll hear the description of the game from Jonathan's May 2019 appearance on The Book of Life podcast. Then we'll hear a clip of me versus Jonathan Auxier in actual gameplay. Just so you know, the game was ultimately won by illustrator Paul O. Zelinsky , who was at the conference to receive the Sydney Taylor Book Award for All-of-a-Kind Family Hanukkah . His Su...

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST    |    READ THE TRANSCRIPT        🕮    At the 2019 Association of Jewish Libraries conference in Los Angeles, California, we recorded a Book of Life live show. My guests were Joni Sussman of KarBen Publishing , and author/illustrator/musician Barney Saltzberg . We discussed picture book illustration while recording our conversation in front of a live audience of Judaica librarians. At the live show, I mentioned the new Listener Survey . Please take a moment to share your feedback to help me make the show the best it can be.  FYI, during Tikkun Olam Time, Joni mentions the organization Books for Africa, which can be found at BooksForAfrica.org .    L-R: Joni Sussman, Barney Saltzberg, Heidi Rabinowitz CREDITS: Produced by: Feldman Children's Library at Congregation B'nai Israel   Supported in part by: Association of Jewish Libraries Theme music: The Freil...

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST      |    READ THE TRANSCRIPT        🕮    Sadaf Siddique and Gauri Manglick are the co-creators of Kitaab World , a website that promotes South Asian children's books. Within their website, they created a campaign called Counter Islamophobia Through Stories , (similar to the Love Your Neighbor campaign that I worked on to help bring Jewish books to ALL readers), and they even turned their campaign into a book called Muslims in Story .  Listen now as Sadaf joins me to talk about the kidlit of our sister religion! 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 Discussion Group: Jewish Kidlit Mavens Facebook Page: facebook.com/bookoflifepodcast      Twitter: @bookoflifepod   ...

In a few weeks, I'll be posting an interview with Sadaf Siddique, co-founder of Kitaab World , a website focusing on South Asian children's literature.  We'll talk about the parallels between her "Counter Islamaphobia Through Stories" campaign and the "Love Your Neighbor" campaign that I spearheaded for the Association of Jewish Libraries. While I'm a little late, I wanted to take this opportunity to wish everyone a Happy Eid al-Adha, a holiday that took place just yesterday. This celebrates the end of the Hajj pilgrimage and commemorates Abraham's near sacrifice of his son. Interestingly, I just learned that there is some dispute between Judaism and Islam about which son was to be sacrificed. In any case, we can all agree that rejecting human sacrifice was the right move!

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST     |    READ THE TRANSCRIPT       🕮    Young Aria is a voracious reader. In this interview, she shares a few of her favorite titles: All Kinds of Strong by Sharon Reiss Baker Zishe the Strongman by Robert Rubinstein Brave Girl : Clara and the Shirtwaist Makers' Strike of 1909 by Michelle Markel Gittel's Journey : An Ellis Island Story by Lesléa Newman The Harriet Hamsterbone series 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 Discussion Group: Jewish Kidlit Mavens Facebook Page: facebook.com/bookoflifepodcast      Twitter: @bookoflifepod   Support the Podcast: Ways to Donate    Your feedback is appreciated! Please fill out Heidi's survey , write to bookoflifepodcast...