SHOW NOTES: https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2025/11/november-throwback-jewish-book-month.html

TRANSCRIPT: https://otter.ai/u/sEuzJ-GYxRIHREm5DRtY94hYkFI?utm_source=copy_url

Continuing the celebration of my 20th year of podcasting, I've got another archival episode for you from 2006, about Jewish Book Month. In the early days of The Book of Life I usually had multiple guests in each episode, and this one includes four:

• Folklorist Howard Schwartz, talking about his picture book Before You Were Born, which had just won the Koret Award | Website of Howard Schwartz z"l | Buy Before You Were Born
• Carolyn Starman Hessel, longtime director of the Jewish Book Council, whose nickname was "the Jewish Oprah" | Jewish Book Council
• Esme Raji Codell, author of one of my favorites middle-grade novels Vive La Paris | Website of Esme Raji Codell | Buy Vive la Paris
• David Levithan, author of the 2004 young adult novel Wide Awake, which was reissued as Wide Awake Now in 2024 because its themes of politics and protest are more relevant than ever | David Levithan on Wikipedia | Buy Wide Awake Now

I'm celebrating Jewish Book Month by participating in the Jewish Book Council's "Share Your Shelf, Share Your Story" project. I will post a photo on social media each day of Jewish Book Month, November 13 through December 13, 2025, showing a Jewish book from my personal collection with a comment about why the book is special to me. See Facebook or Instagram.

CREDITS:

• Produced by Feldman Children's Library at Congregation B'nai Israel
• Co-sponsored by the Association of Jewish Libraries
• Sister podcast: Nice Jewish Books
• Theme Music: The Freilachmakers Klezmer String Band
• Newsletter: bookoflifepodcast.substack.com
• Facebook Discussion Group: Jewish Kidlit Mavens
• Facebook Page: Facebook.com/bookoflifepodcast
• Instagram: @bookoflifepodcast
• Support the Podcast: Shop or Donate

Your feedback is welcome! Please write to [email protected] or leave a voicemail at 561-206-2473.

SHOW NOTES: https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2025/11/jean-meltzer-queen-of-jewish-joy.html

TRANSCRIPT: https://otter.ai/u/65Uhjlmyb1QYDBa_KvBpl0TCTyU?utm_source=copy_url

Back in July 2025 I did a brief interview with Jean Meltzer, so she could tell you about Jewish Joy Con, an exciting event coming to Fort Lauderdale, Florida in March 2026. But I promised you a longer interview later - and here it is! Jean talks about her writing, her Jewish Joy Book Club and subscription box, more about the con, and about her newest book, The Eight Heartbreaks of Hanukkah.

LEARN MORE:

• Jean Meltzer's website, Instagram, and Facebook

• Jewish Women Talk About Romance Books group on Facebook

• The Jewish Joy Box

• Jewish Joy Con (March 13-15, 2026 in Ft. Lauderdale, FL)

• Jean's own books: o The Matzah Ball o Mr. Perfect on Paper o Kissing Kosher o Magical Meet Cute o The Eight Heartbreaks of Hanukkah

• Jean's recommended reading suggestions: o Blood Bond by Helen Hardt o Never Planned on You by Lindsey Hammerhof o Battle of the Bookstores by Ali Brady o Sisters of Fortune by Esther Chechebar o Soon by You by Dahlia Adler o Good Grief by Sarah Goodman Confino

• Heidi's "Jewish Joy" series on Multicultural Kid Blogs

CREDITS:

• Produced by Feldman Children's Library at Congregation B'nai Israel
• Co-sponsored by the Association of Jewish Libraries
• Sister podcast: Nice Jewish Books
• Theme Music: The Freilachmakers Klezmer String Band
• Newsletter: bookoflifepodcast.substack.com
• Facebook Discussion Group: Jewish Kidlit Mavens
• Facebook Page: Facebook.com/bookoflifepodcast
• Instagram: @bookoflifepodcast
• Support the Podcast: Shop or Donate

Your feedback is welcome! Please write to [email protected] or leave a voicemail at 561-206-2473.

SHOW NOTES: https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2025/10/october-throwback-laurel-snyder-redux.html

TRANSCRIPT: https://otter.ai/u/eP9KxOhurmOFV6jIhbWPC5jYX8Y?utm_source=copy_url

Continuing the celebration of my 20th year of podcasting, I've got a 2013 archival episode for you with author Laurel Snyder, who at that time was best known for her iconoclastic picture book, Baxter The Pig Who Wanted to Be Kosher. Amazingly, Laurel says that The Book of Life podcast actually impacted her writing! In a 2017 blog article she credited our first podcast conversation as a turning point in her career. She said "Heidi asked me, reasonably, what made my book Jewish, and I found I didn't have an answer for her…. She could not possibly have known, when she asked me that question a decade ago, what journey she was sending me on. The power of the right question is a mighty thing." Laurel has gone on to win the 2014 Sydney Taylor Book Award gold medal for her Exodus picture book The Longest Night, and a 2024 bronze for a middle grade fantasy, The Witch of Woodland. This year she's published The Book of Candles: Eight Poems for Hanukkah.

LEARN MORE:

• Laurel Snyder's website
• Buy or Borrow Laurel's newest title, The Book of Candles
• Other past episodes with Laurel: 2008 "Two Jews, Three Opinions" 2015 "The Longest Night"
• That time Laurel interviewed Heidi in 2010
• Bonus content for this episode in Substack newsletter
• Recent print interview about Countering Antisemitism & Hate

CREDITS:

• Produced by Feldman Children's Library at Congregation B'nai Israel
• Co-sponsored by the Association of Jewish Libraries
• Sister podcast: Nice Jewish Books
• Theme Music: The Freilachmakers Klezmer String Band
• Newsletter: bookoflifepodcast.substack.com
• Facebook Discussion Group: Jewish Kidlit Mavens
• Facebook Page: Facebook.com/bookoflifepodcast
• Instagram: @bookoflifepodcast
• Support the Podcast: Shop or Donate

Your feedback is welcome! Please write to [email protected] or leave a voicemail at 561-206-2473.

SHOW NOTES: https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2025/10/one-small-spark-more-than-enough.html

TRANSCRIPT: https://otter.ai/u/-_ly-iTlaYO1hZfUChOPKsYnXTI?utm_source=copy_url

If you're a regular Book of Life listener, you know I always ask guests for tikkun olam suggestions about ways to repair the world. Well, that's what this entire episode is about. I've got a pair of Jewish activist picture books for you: One Small Spark: A Tikkun Olam Story by Ruth Spiro, and More Than Enough: Inspired by Maimonides Golden Ladder of Giving by Richard Michelson, a story about tzedakah. These are both gorgeous picture books that convey their important messages without being preachy - absolutely worth sharing with the kids in your life to help turn them into mensches.

LEARN MORE:

• Richard Michelson's author website and art gallery website

• Ruth Spiro's website

• Borrow or Buy More Than Enough

• Borrow or Buy One Small Spark

• Read-alike suggestions: Ruth Suggests Out and About: A Tale of Giving by Liza Wiemer; Rich suggests The Midnight Mitzvah by Ruth Horowitz

CREDITS:

• Produced by Feldman Children's Library at Congregation B'nai Israel
• Co-sponsored by the Association of Jewish Libraries
• Sister podcast: Nice Jewish Books
• Theme Music: The Freilachmakers Klezmer String Band
• Newsletter: bookoflifepodcast.substack.com
• Facebook Discussion Group: Jewish Kidlit Mavens
• Facebook Page: Facebook.com/bookoflifepodcast
• Instagram: @bookoflifepodcast
• Support the Podcast: Shop or Donate

Your feedback is welcome! Please write to [email protected] or leave a voicemail at 561-206-2473.

SHOW NOTES: https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2025/09/september-throwback-sweep-story-of-girl.html

TRANSCRIPT: https://open.substack.com/pub/bookoflifepodcast/p/september-throwback-sweep-the-story?r=16b2w9&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

To continue with the themes of golems and fighting for justice that we explored in our most recent episode about Kyle Lukoff's A World Worth Saving, AND in honor of my 20th year of podcasting on The Book of Life, I'm bringing you an episode from the archives. It's an interview about the middle grade historical fantasy Sweep: The Story of a Girl and Her Monster by Jonathan Auxier which originally aired in May, 2019, and it's also about golems, and fighting for justice.

Since 2019, Author Jonathan Auxier has become a podcaster too. He and Matt Bird cohost A Good Story Well Told, a show about the craft of storytelling.

LEARN MORE:

• Jonathan Auxier's website

• Borrow or Buy Sweep

• A Good Story Well Told - Jonathan's podcast

• Original show notes with links to books and games mentioned in the interview

• Follow-up episode with Jonathan: Superfight!

• Bonus Content in Substack Newsletter

CREDITS:

• Produced by Feldman Children's Library at Congregation B'nai Israel
• Co-sponsored by the Association of Jewish Libraries
• Sister podcast: Nice Jewish Books
• Theme Music: The Freilachmakers Klezmer String Band
• Newsletter: bookoflifepodcast.substack.com
• Facebook Discussion Group: Jewish Kidlit Mavens
• Facebook Page: Facebook.com/bookoflifepodcast
• Instagram: @bookoflifepodcast
• Support the Podcast: Shop or Donate

Your feedback is welcome! Please write to [email protected] or leave a voicemail at 561-206-2473.

SHOW NOTES: https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2025/09/a-world-worth-saving.html

TRANSCRIPT: https://otter.ai/u/_6lUDoKCnGpaSn-_alokxvSNtEo?utm_source=copy_url

A World Worth Saving by Kyle Lukoff is a queer Jewish fantasy adventure in which a trans boy and an unusual golem must save the world by Yom Kippur! I interviewed Kyle about this new middle grade novel, as well as his seasonally appropriate picture book, I'm Sorry You Got Mad, a wonderful reflection on the art of apology. Shana Tova!

LEARN MORE:

• Kyle Lukoff's website

• Borrow or Buy A World Worth Saving

• Borrow or Buy I'm Sorry You Got Mad

• Kyle's recommended queer Jewish reading: When the Angels Left the Old Country by Sacha Lamb (interview on The Book of Life in January 2023)

• Throwing Sheyd, a podcast about Jewish demonology that Kyle used for research

• Bonus content at The Book of Life Podcast Substack newsletter

CREDITS:

• Produced by Feldman Children's Library at Congregation B'nai Israel
• Co-sponsored by the Association of Jewish Libraries
• Sister podcast: Nice Jewish Books
• Theme Music: The Freilachmakers Klezmer String Band
• Newsletter: bookoflifepodcast.substack.com
• Facebook Discussion Group: Jewish Kidlit Mavens
• Facebook Page: Facebook.com/bookoflifepodcast
• Instagram: @bookoflifepodcast
• Support the Podcast: Shop or Donate

Your feedback is welcome! Please write to [email protected] or leave a voicemail at 561-206-2473.

SHOW NOTES:

TRANSCRIPT:

In honor of my 20th year of podcasting on The Book of Life, I'm bringing you another episode from the archives: Summer Coolness, released in June 2007. The episode featured a now-defunct website called ReaderGirlz, and the website Nextbook that morphed into Tablet Magazine in 2009. There were also many mentions of MySpace. I interviewed Melissa Schorr, author of Goy Crazy, who, according to her website, seems to have mostly moved on from kidlit to journalism. I must say, her most recent book from 2017, Shame Nation: Choosing Kindness and Compassion in an Age of Cruelty and Trolling, looks extremely on point. And the episode featured the band Sababa, which happily is still in existence, and in fact, they've recently released their fourth album called When We Rise.

LEARN MORE:

• ReaderGirlz history on Wikipedia, and Guest Lorie Ann Grover

• Author Melissa Schorr and her book, Goy Crazy

• Sababa website, and Guest Scott Leader

• Nextbook history on Wikipedia, and Guest Julie Sandorf

• Julie's reading recommendations: o Joy Comes in the Morning by Jonathan Rosen o Prisoners: A Story of Friendship and Terror by Jeffrey Goldberg o When We Were Bad by Charlotte Mendelson o Disobedience by Naomi Alderman

• Bonus content for this episode on The Book of Life's Substack Newsletter

CREDITS:

• Produced by Feldman Children's Library at Congregation B'nai Israel
• Co-sponsored by the Association of Jewish Libraries
• Sister podcast: Nice Jewish Books
• Theme Music: The Freilachmakers Klezmer String Band
• Newsletter: bookoflifepodcast.substack.com
• Facebook Discussion Group: Jewish Kidlit Mavens
• Facebook Page: Facebook.com/bookoflifepodcast
• Instagram: @bookoflifepodcast
• Support the Podcast: Shop or Donate

Your feedback is welcome! Please write to [email protected] or leave a voicemail at 561-206-2473.

SHOW NOTES: https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2025/08/the-five-books.html

TRANSCRIPT: https://otter.ai/u/newZynBRoGzWkdF7PaTnzDLDSP4?utm_source=copy_url

The Five Books is a new literary Jewish podcast hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen in partnership with the Jewish Book Council. I'm very happy to welcome another show to our little corner of the book world, so I invited Tali to do a mutual interview. We interviewed each other, and the episode will appear on both our podcast feeds.

LEARN MORE:

• The Five Books Podcast website

• Highlights of past episodes: o Yale Strom on The Book of Life o Gayle Forman on The Five Books

• Recommended podcasts: o Heidi: Nice Jewish Books, Recognizably Jewish, Fuse 8 and Kate o Tali: Identity/Crisis, Call Me Back, The New Yorker Fiction Podcast, How to Fail

• For the full list of all the books we discussed, plus links to other past podcast swaps I've recorded, see the Substack post for this episode.

CREDITS:

• Produced by Feldman Children's Library at Congregation B'nai Israel
• Co-sponsored by the Association of Jewish Libraries
• Sister podcast: Nice Jewish Books
• Theme Music: The Freilachmakers Klezmer String Band
• Newsletter: bookoflifepodcast.substack.com
• Facebook Discussion Group: Jewish Kidlit Mavens
• Facebook Page: Facebook.com/bookoflifepodcast
• Instagram: @bookoflifepodcast
• Support the Podcast: Shop or Donate

Your feedback is welcome! Please write to [email protected] or leave a voicemail at 561-206-2473.

SHOW NOTES: https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2025/07/announcement-jewish-joy-con.html

TRANSCRIPT: https://otter.ai/u/K_DNE5hooD1D-ujpoI2gQUXpsZs?utm_source=copy_url

LEARN MORE:

• Jean Meltzer's website

• Jewish Joy LLC (the Jewish Joy Book Club and the Jewish Joy Box)

• Jewish Joy Con, March 13-15, 2026 in Ft. Lauderdale, FL

CREDITS:

• Produced by Feldman Children's Library at Congregation B'nai Israel
• Co-sponsored by the Association of Jewish Libraries
• Sister podcast: Nice Jewish Books
• Theme Music: The Freilachmakers Klezmer String Band
• Newsletter: bookoflifepodcast.substack.com
• Facebook Discussion Group: Jewish Kidlit Mavens
• Facebook Page: Facebook.com/bookoflifepodcast
• Instagram: @bookoflifepodcast
• Support the Podcast: Shop or Donate

Your feedback is welcome! Please write to [email protected] or leave a voicemail at 561-206-2473.

SHOW NOTES: https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2025/07/july-throwback-inquisitors-tale.html

TRANSCRIPT: https://otter.ai/u/idZDWVCvKcbXcYPMmx4uUuonYQE?utm_source=copy_url

As a follow up to my recent interview with Adam Gidwitz about Max in the Land of Lies, and in honor of my 20th year of podcasting on The Book of Life, I'm bringing you an episode from the archives, from January 2017. I met Adam Gidwitz at an author "speed dating" event at the American Library Association conference, where he was promoting his middle grade fantasy The Inquisitor's Tale, which later went on to win a Sydney Taylor Book Award, a Newbery Honor, and a lot of other awards. If you enjoy this blast from the past, please check out other past episodes of The Book of Life from any time in the last 2 decades. Go to Bookoflifepodcast.com and Click on Archive in the sidebar, or just go to the episode list on your podcast player and keep on scrolling down, down, down.

LEARN MORE:

• Adam Gidwitz's website
• Adam Gidwitz's July 2025 interview about Max in the Land of Lies
• Original 2017 show notes for interview about The Inquisitor's Tale
• Buy or borrow The Inquisitor's Tale

CREDITS:

• Produced by Feldman Children's Library at Congregation B'nai Israel
• Co-sponsored by the Association of Jewish Libraries
• Sister podcast: Nice Jewish Books
• Theme Music: The Freilachmakers Klezmer String Band
• Newsletter: bookoflifepodcast.substack.com
• Facebook Discussion Group: Jewish Kidlit Mavens
• Facebook Page: Facebook.com/bookoflifepodcast
• Instagram: @bookoflifepodcast
• Support the Podcast: Shop or Donate

Your feedback is welcome! Please write to [email protected] or leave a voicemail at 561-206-2473.