Michel may not be the big man on campus, but he definitely rules his 2nd grade classroom in Tehran and all is well in his world. That is, until his family decides to uproot him and brother Saeed and move the family to Los Angeles. Newly minted as "Mike" he struggles to navigate a new language, new customs, new foods, and most importantly new heirarchies on the playground. Join me for a conversation with Michael Shokrian about his new book American Playground.

Follow along with the transcript.

Check out his website.

Support the author, AJL, and independent book stores by buying their book here.

Thanks to:

• The Association of Jewish Libraries
• Heidi Rabinowitz, podcast mentor
• Dee Yan Key for use of their Freylekh (downloaded from https://freemusicarchive.org/home)
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If you enjoyed this podcast, you might also like the AJL sister podcast, The Book of Life, a podcast about Jewish kidlit, mostly.