The Book of Life

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST     🕮     Meira Drazin is the author of Honey and Me , a forthcoming middle grade novel from Scholastic. Even before she got that book deal, she won the Sydney Taylor Manuscript Award for the unpublished work. She was at the 2016 Association of Jewish Libraries conference in Charleston, SC to receive her award. We sat down with a few members of the award committee for a quick chat. INVITATION :  As you hear in th is podcast episode, you are invited to participate in How Is This Book Different? , a joint project of the Association of Jewish Libr aries , the Jewish Book Council , and Call Me Ish mael . Between March 27-April 4, 2017, call 774-325-0503 with a story about your a Jewish book that matters to your life ! 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   Face...

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST     |    UNORTHODOX WEBSITE     🕮    Unorthodox is a chatty and irreverent Jewish podcast from Tablet Magazine, and I'm a big fan. I was excited to see their live show at Temple Israel in West Palm Beach, and was lucky to snag an interview after the show. Here are some links to topics we mentioned in our conversation: Unorthodox live show in West Palm Beach The one with the bad H olocaust joke from Morty's g randson T h e one with Jillian Keenan The one with David Duchovny The one with Tessa Kim The one with Harry Potter and the Sacred Tex t Call Me Ishmael: How Is This Book Different from All Other Books? 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  ...

Here are all the final links to the posts created during the 2017 Sydney Taylor Book Award Blog Tour. So many wonderful interviews for you to enjoy!  2017 SYDNEY TAYLOR BOOK AWARD BLOG TOUR Gavriel Savit, author of Anna and the Swallow Man  Sydney Taylor Book Award winner in the Teen Readers category  At Book Q&A's with Deborah Kalb  Andrea Davis Pinkney (author), Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher (illustrators) of A Poem for Peter  Sydney Taylor Honor Book in the Older Readers category  At The Book of Life  Debbie Levy and Elizabeth Baddeley, author and illustrator of I Dissent Sydney Taylor Book Award winner in the Younger Readers category  At Ima On and Off the Bima  Joel Ben Izzy, author of Dreidels on the Brain  Sydney Taylor Honor Book in the Older Readers category  At Bildungsroman Adam Gidwitz and Hatem Aly, author and illustrator of The Inquisitor's Tale  Sydney Taylor Book Award winner in the O...

BUY THE BOOK     🕮    A Poem for Peter by Andrea Davis Pinkney, illustrated by Lou Fancher and Steve Johnson, is both a biography of Ezra Jack Keats and a love poem to the famous 1962 picture book he created, The Snowy Day . It was named a 2017 Sydney Taylor Honor Book by the Association of Jewish Libraries. ANDREA DAVIS PINKNEY Andrea, please talk about what The Snowy Day means to you personally. Did it affect your path to becoming an author yourself? I was born in the inner-city in 1963, the same year Ezra Jack Keats's The Snowy Day won the Caldecott medal. My parents had very limited financial resources, but they purchased that book for their young daughter. I often joke that I slept with The Snowy Day , that I cuddled with it. That's how much comfort that book brought me. It was as special as any pillow. Looking back, I now see that the book's magic -- and its personal appeal to me -- was in its main character Peter, the first African-Ame...

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST     |    BUY THE BOOK     🕮    The Book of Life's Canadian Correspondent Anne Dublin interviews author Eva Wiseman about her historical/paranormal romance for teens, Another Me . The book was a National Jewish Book Award Finalist in the Young Adult category for the Posner Award. 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 appreciated! Please write to bookoflifepodcast@gmail.com or call our voicemail number at 561-206-2473.

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST      |    BUY THE BOOK     |    VISIT MCBD WEBSITE     🕮    Today, January 27, 2017, is Multicultural Children's Book Day, a celebration of diversity in kidlit. Check out multiculturalchildrensbookday.com to find diversity booklists for kids , a kindness kit for teachers, and giveaways of diverse books. And be sure to search for the hashtag #ReadYourWorld to find links to multicultural children's book reviews and reading suggestions. In the spirit of the Day's hashtag, #ReadYourWorld , I'm posting a recording of Leslie Kimmelman 's talk at the 2016 Association of Jewish Libraries conference in Charleston, SC. Leslie spoke about her picture book, Everybody Says Shalom , which was a 2016 Sydney Taylor Honor Book in the Younger Readers category. This charming book showcases friendly diversity in an Israeli setting. Enjoy , and shalom! CREDITS: Produced by: Feldma...

VISIT THE SYDNEY TAYLOR BOOK AWARD WEBSITE     🕮    The Sydney Taylor Book Award will be showcasing its 2017 gold and silver medalists with a Blog Tour, February 6-10, 2017! Interviews with winning authors and illustrators will appear on a variety of Jewish and kidlit blogs. Interviews will appear on the dates below, and will remain available to read at your own convenience. Below is the schedule for the 2017 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! 2017 SYDNEY TAYLOR BOOK AWARD BLOG TOUR MONDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2017 Gavriel Savit , author of Anna and the Swallow Man Sydney Taylor Book Award winner in the Teen Readers category At Book Q&A's with Deborah Kalb  Andrea Davis Pinkney (author), Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher (illustrators) of A Poem for Peter Sydney Taylor Honor Book in the Older Readers category At ...

VISIT STORYTIME UNDERGROUND     🕮    Storytime Underground , a blog and Facebook group for children's librarians, challenged participants to use their storytimes to make the world a fairer place. As the organizers said, " Take a moment to think about what you can do to help teach empathy and inclusiveness in your programming." These goals are represented by the Jewish values of tikkun olam (repairing the world) and tzedakah (justice). The hashtag #storytimejusticewarrior helps us find examples from storytime providers everywhere. During the week following Martin Luther King Jr. Day, my storytime theme was skin, its functions and colors. I particularly enjoy using puppets to teach this concept. This pair of puppets from Sunny and Co. offer a great Venn diagram of intersecting comparisons and contrasts. Their hair is the same color but different styles. Their clothing both includes denim but for different items. I love it that the boy puppet is ...

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST     |    BUY THE BOOK     🕮    The Inquisitor's Tale: Or, the Three Magical Children and Their Holy Dog by Adam Gidwitz with illustrations by Hatem Aly is the 2017 Sydney Taylor Book Award winner in the Older Readers category, and it was a National Jewish Book Award Finalist in the Children's Literature category. Both these awards were announced in January 2017; I interviewed Adam long before that, soon after meeting him at a kidlit author speed dating event at the American Library Association convention in Orlando in June 2016. The Inquisitor's Tale has been receiving accolades from simply everyone. A particularly insightful review was the one by Betsy Bird at A Fuse #8 Production blog on the School Library Journal website. CREDITS: Produced by: Feldman Children's Library at Congregation B'nai Israel   Supported in part by: Association of Jewish Libraries     Theme music: The...

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST     |    VISIT SYDNEY TAYLOR BOOK AWARD WEBSITE     🕮    Ellen Tilman is the chair of the Sydney Taylor Book Award committee of the Association of Jewish Libraries . She joined us by phone from her home in Philadelphia to talk about the newest crop of winners that were announced just this week. Here's the official announcement with the full list of winners, honors, and notable books: click here . Here's my roundup of winning books that have appeared on The Book of Life: click here 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 Podcast: Shop or Donate Your feedback is appreciated! Please write to bookoflifepodcast@gmail.com or call our voice...

AJL's Sydney Taylor Book Award Committee, June 2016   January 11, 2017 was a big day for Jewish book awards - both the Association of Jewish Libraries and the Jewish Book Council announced winning titles! Many of these books have already been covered on The Book of Life podcast, and others are in the pipeline now. I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Makes Her Mark by Debbie Levy, illustrated by Elizabeth Baddeley, won the Sydney Taylor Book Award in the Younger Readers category AND the National Jewish Book Award in the Children's Literature category. Hear from author Debbie Levy in this November 2016 podcast. The Inquisitor's Tale: Or, The Three Magical Children and Their Holy Dog by Adam Gidwitz, illustrated by Hatel Aly, won the Sydney Taylor Book Award in the Older Readers category AND was a National Jewish Book Award Finalist in the Children's Literature category. Hear my interview with Adam in this January 2017 podcast. Dreidels on the Brain by Joel...

For More Information Contact: Ellen Tilman, Chair Sydney Taylor Book Award Committee Association of Jewish Libraries (215) 906-4657 chair@sydneytaylorbookaward.org January 11, 2017 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 2017 SYDNEY TAYLOR BOOK AWARD WINNERS ANNOUNCED Winners of the annual Sydney Taylor Book Award were announced by the Association of Jewish Libraries today. Named in memory of Sydney Taylor, author of the classic All-of-a-Kind Family series, the award recognizes books for children and teens that exemplify high literary standards while authentically portraying the Jewish experience. GOLD MEDALISTS I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Makes Her Mark by Debbie Levy with illustrations by Elizabeth Baddeley, published by Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers, won the Sydney Taylor Book Award in the Younger Readers category. This delightful biography of the Supreme Court Justice teaches children that dissent does not make a person disagreeable, and can even help ...

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST      |    BUY THE BOOK     🕮    Adam and Thomas by Aharon Appelfeld won the 2016 Sydney Taylor Book Award in the Older Readers category. The book is based loosely on Appelfeld's own Holocaust experiences, and is the story of two young boys who band together to survive while hiding in the forest. It was originally written in Hebrew and translated into English by Jeffrey Green . Appelfeld was not able to attend the Association of Jewish Libraries conference to accept his award, but Green was present, and allowed me to record the talk he gave about the experience of translating the book. You'll also hear from award committee chair Ellen Tillman, who met with Appelfeld during a recent trip to Israel. 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 B...

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST     |    BUY THE BOOK     🕮    Warren Adler's career is so expansive that we couldn't even cover it all in this interview! He's written about forty books (novels, mysteries, thrillers, and more), and is probably best known for The War of the Roses - he wrote the book and the screenplay. In this interview we focus on on his recently reissued collection of short stories, The Sunset Gang , about the Jewish residents of a Florida retirement village. Several stories from The Sunset Gang were also made into a PBS series on American Playhouse , and there was even a musical theater version . An audio book is coming out soon. 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 t...