The Book of Life: Jewish Kidlit (Mostly)

SHOW NOTES : https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2025/05/a-special-message-from-heidi-high-low.html   TRANSCRIPT : https://otter.ai/u/tomHSY9SlPPB1XDOQwsavTXOeUM?utm_source=copy_url   I'm squeezing in this quick extra episode to share with you my personal response to the shooting at the Capitol Jewish Museum, with calls to action and a message of hope.  LEARN MORE: HIGH E Train Talks interviews Heidi...

SHOW NOTES: https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2025/05/jahm-throwback-book-of-life-in-america.html   TRANSCRIPT: https://otter.ai/u/bd9VMkp1cnjgHm9z4cbdq7Usaak?utm_source=copy_url   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...

SHOW NOTES: https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2025/05/mendel-mess-up.html   TRANSCRIPT : https://otter.ai/u/MYzjopAD_3R8aSnpGTydMmKNjv4?utm_source=copy_url 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 Publis...

SHOW NOTES: https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2025/04/listen-to-podcast-read-transcript-buy.html   TRANSCRIPT: https://otter.ai/u/EnXlWNdrqXuQ4V3kzlKGwyqpPWk?utm_source=copy_url   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 th...

SHOW NOTES: https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2025/04/bonus-passover-interview-next-year-in.html   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 re...

SHOW NOTES: https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2025/03/dara-horns-one-little-goat-passover.html   TRANSCRIPT: https://otter.ai/u/zU6o8qxtZlvMmyrGuICLUOmimzQ?utm_source=copy_url 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 brillian...

SHOW NOTES: https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2025/03/night-owls.html TRANSCRIPT: https://otter.ai/u/NeK1Grf7bTzi-TYHpbLocZlEbH4?utm_source=copy_url 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...

SHOW NOTES: https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2025/02/finn-and-ezras-bar-mitzvah-time-loop.html   TRANSCRIPT: https://otter.ai/u/FR6MxDDT0mG1gxfhcfN-6KoLAHA?utm_source=copy_url   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 author...

SHOW NOTES: https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2025/01/the-2025-sydney-taylor-book-awards.html TRANSCRIPT: https://otter.ai/u/g5yluS6SsAbhu4hkoKy62TZUgac?utm_source=copy_url   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 even...

SHOW NOTES: https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2025/01/one-of-kind-life-of-sydney-taylor.html   TRANSCRIPT:  https://otter.ai/u/pOzW-X6i92Kh4g_Ou-vEKIAGWcM?utm_source=copy_url 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...

SHOW NOTES: https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2025/01/the-bubbe-of-them-all-kar-ben-publishing.html   TRANSCRIPT: https://otter.ai/u/K9B8p4G3Nr-quRj9KYrkhRaGZio?utm_source=copy_url   Appropriately, as we kick off this podcast's 20th 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 o...

SHOW NOTES: https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2024/12/cheering-on-jewish-books-hanukkah-gift.html TRANSCRIPT:   https://otter.ai/u/o0Yx3uuZxPHcUStwWsJbUa7xkmY?utm_source=copy_url   HANDOUT: https://tinyURL.com/CheeringJewishBooks   VIDEO WITH SLIDES: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSBTYGDhCl4&t=2s For Hanukkah 2024, I got you a Jewish Book Advocacy Kit! Let me explain. My local public library invi...

SHOW NOTES:  https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2024/12/a-very-december-25th-hanukkah.html TRANSCRIPT: https://otter.ai/u/UWPCM0P5Hpt6NgXH36TIfIelswY?utm_source=copy_url Happy Hanukkah! Christmas and Hanukkah overlap this year, with Hanukkah beginning on December 25, so it's a good time to think about the juxtaposition of these two holidays. Hanukkah is a minor holiday but its proximity to Christmas...

SHOW NOTES: https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2024/11/jewish-book-month.html TRANSCRIPT: https://otter.ai/u/EHJzDppX2El7s3XjfPnLd-PqW4I?utm_source=copy_url Here's a bonus episode for you, in honor of Jewish Book Month, which is marking its 99th year.  Arielle Landau, the program coordinator at the Jewish Book Council, joins me to talk about the Council's special campaign to Celebrate Jewish Books,...

SHOW NOTES: https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2024/11/creature-double-feature-part-ii-emi.html TRANSCRIPT: https://otter.ai/u/LlqEguYzidUDn_uqBHgEK5B1QKY?utm_source=copy_url For the month of November 2024, we've got a 2-part series, CREATURE DOUBLE FEATURE: ANTISEMITISM AND THE SUPERNATURAL . Our guest for Part II is Japanese American Jewish author Emi Watanabe Cohen. Her debut novel was The Lost R...

SHOW NOTES: https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2024/11/creature-double-feature-part-i-deke.html TRANSCRIPT: https://otter.ai/u/9oU8bBDsH32kp0wvR50fWFGLTF0?utm_source=copy_url For the month of November 2024, we've got a 2-part series,  CREATURE DOUBLE FEATURE: ANTISEMITISM AND THE SUPERNATURAL . Our first guest is Deke Moulton, author of Don't Want to Be Your Monster (about Jewish vampires) and Benji...

SHOW NOTES: https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2024/10/festive-friends-part-i-teshuvah-and.html TRANSCRIPT: https://otter.ai/u/x1-e3vOomTqZOrPvQPzePL4ZOKQ   In honor of this holiday-packed month, I've got a 2-part series for you. I'm calling it  Festive Friends , because each episode features a pair of friends talking about books relevant to our fall holidays. Here in Part I, the Festive Friends are...

SHOW NOTES: https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2024/10/festive-friends-part-ii-asian-jewish.html TRANSCRIPT: https://otter.ai/u/xKGzqMhNsej4ALLe6F7e2wBfNJg October 2024 is packed with Jewish holidays, so we've got a 2-part series for you to celebrate: Holiday Friends. In each episode, we hear from a pair of friends about their books that will help us celebrate the Jewish holidays. In Festive Friends...

SHOW NOTES: https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2024/09/our-jewish-emotional-support-books.html TRANSCRIPT: https://otter.ai/u/LVQ-f8Gwpfw2LLKvE4Y7TGOzHes?utm_source=copy_url At the Association of Jewish Libraries 2024 annual conference in San Diego, CA, I met up with Sheryl Stahl, host of our sister podcast, Nice Jewish Books. Inspired by the cartoon seen here, Sheryl and I interviewed our friends a...

SHOW NOTES: https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2024/08/the-mitzvah-of-voting-edited-encore.html TRANSCRIPT: https://otter.ai/u/ql3_Vi81NBwkvNT97SKZiyh8_yM?utm_source=copy_url Four years ago in 2020 at the height of the pandemic, I ran a 3-part series called  The Mitzvah of Voting . Here we are in 2024 in a presidential election year again and defending our democracy is more important than ever! Here...

SHOW NOTES: https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2024/08/the-state-of-middle-grade.html I love middle grade books! But what defines a middle grade book? What are the challenges to publishing for this age group? What is the state of middle grade literature today? To learn more, I invited 2 experts on the genre: ~ Librarian Karen Jense n, author of "Treatise on the State of Middle Grade and Young Adult...

SHOW NOTES: https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2024/07/espionage-secrets-suspense-holocaust.html Two incredible authors, Adam Gidwitz and Steve Sheinkin, joined me to talk about their most recent books, Max in the House of Spies and Impossible Escape . As many listeners know, I tend to avoid Holocaust books because I've kind of overdosed on them during a long career of working with Jewish children's...

SHOW NOTES: https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2024/06/joyful-song-with-leslea-newman-susan-gal.html Joyful Song: A Naming Story is Lesléa Newman's newest picture book, and once again she's paired up with the amazing Susan Gal. This dynamic duo brought us Here Is the World in 2014 and Welcoming Elijah in 2020. Their new 2024 book is about a baby naming at synagogue, and about the diverse and loving...

SHOW NOTES: https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2024/05/ruth-behar-on-across-so-many-seas.html Lucky Broken Girl, Letters from Cuba, Tia Fortuna's New Home , and now, Across So Many Seas . Award winning author Ruth Behar keeps finding new ways to share her Sephardic and Ashkenazi Cuban Jewish heritage with us, and it's fresh and fascinating every time. In her latest sweeping middle grade novel, Acros...

SHOW NOTES: https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2024/04/project-shema.html As you may remember, in December 2023 I participated in The Artists Against Antisemitism auction, which raised funds for Project Shema. Today we'll talk with April Powers, Vice President of Diversity Equity and Inclusion at Project Shema, to learn more about their mission and how it can help us kidlit folks.  LEARN MORE: Trans...