The Book of Life: Jewish Kidlit (Mostly)

SHOW NOTES: https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2023/10/am-yisrael-chai-tammar-stein.html

On October 7, 2023, the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur war, the terrorist group Hamas launched a brutal attack against Israel, murdering and kidnapping civilians young and old as well as striking military targets on multiple fronts. At the time of writing, Israel is at war. With Israel on my mind and in my heart, I went back and listened to Tammar Stein's 2017 interview on The Book of Life about her middle grade novel, The Six Day Hero, which is about the 1967 Six Day War. I thought you might like to hear it too. FYI, in 2020 Tammar published a companion book, Beni's War, about the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Both books are excellent.

I left the original "tune in next time" teaser on the end of the recording because I found it moving. It was Fawzia Gilani-Williams, author of Yaffa and Fatima, Shalom Salaam, dedicating her episode to the Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom because of their message of peace. There's a link to that interview in the show notes.

For a tikkun olam moment of my own, I'm making a donation to Magen David Adom, the Israeli version of the Red Cross. I invite you to join me.

Please see below for additional book recommendations and past podcasts about Israel-related youth literature.

LEARN MORE:

• Tammar Stein's website, The Six-Day War, and Beni's War
• AJL's Love Your Neighbor list #8: Israel
• Magen David Adom and American Friends of Magen David Adom
• Transcript of this podcast

SELECTED PAST BOOK OF LIFE EPISODES ABOUT ISRAEL

Yaffa and Fatima, Shalom Salaam with guest Fawzia Gilani-Williams

The Language of Angels with guest Richard Michelson

The Nazi Hunters with guest Neal Bascome

Unsettled: the Problem of Loving Israel with guest Marc Aronson

Hare and Tortoise Race Across Israel with guest Laura Gehl

Shalom Sesame with guest Veronica Wulff

Wherever You Go with guest Joan Leegant

The Last Shepherd with guest actors Uri Lifshitz and Roni Weissman, writer Gai Bosco, and post production manager Dovi Shraga

A Musical Israel @ 60 with guests Yuval Ron, Fran Manushkin, and Michael Dorf

SHOW NOTES: https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2023/10/e-train-talks.html

E Train is the powerhouse 12-year-old behind the podcast, YouTube channel, and website E Train Talks, and he's recently formed his own nonprofit. This Jewish tween is a remarkable literacy advocate who's doing so much good in the world. TRANSCRIPT

LEARN MORE:

• E Train Talks: Website, YouTube channel, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Podcast
• E Train's GoFundMe
• Book Fairies
• E Train's Tikkun Olam suggestion: Triple Negative Breast Cancer Foundation
• Sold a Story: How Teaching Kids to Read Went So Wrong podcast from American Public Media
• A Double Helping of Babka interview about two babka-related picture books
• It's Banned Books Week (October 1-7, 2023)

SHOW NOTES: https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2023/09/two-new-years.html

Happy New Year! Rosh Hashanah (which begins this year on September 15, 2023), is celebrated by Jewish folks each fall. The Lunar New Year (which will be celebrated next on February 10, 2024) is celebrated by Asian folks each spring. In the picture book Two New Years, Richard Ho explains and Lynn Scurfield beautifully illustrates the parallels between these two celebrations. The book is about a Chinese Jewish family and is a wonderful example of the increasingly diverse Jewish representation being published today.

LEARN MORE:

• Richard Ho's website
• Lynn Scurfield's website
• Jewish/Asian intersectional kidlit list

Look at the SHOW NOTES to find a transcript and more!

SHOW NOTES: https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2023/08/friends-for-lq-auction.html

We're squeezing in an extra episode this month to let you know about a special project inspired by our July 2023 interview with Arthur Levine of Levine Querido! After hearing the July interview, listeners Liza Wiemer and Debbi Lakrtiz were inspired to address the challenge of reduced sales that LQ is facing due to its mission of championing diverse voices.

Levine Querido is a remarkable publisher with an important yet imperiled mission. In the few short years since they were founded, they've won over 150 awards for their devastatingly beautiful books, but the timing of the pandemic and the rise in book banning is a huge challenge for them. We need Levine Querido to succeed, not just because they are doing great work but because the publishing industry needs to see that diversity does sell.

Liza and Debbi are organizing an online auction to help Levine Querido get past this difficult time. You are welcome to donate an item or service, AND of course to bid in the auction! Listen to this short episode to learn more, and please join me in buying LQ books, requesting them from the local library, and supporting Liza and Debbi's auction.

LEARN MORE:

• Suggestions for items and services that you can donate to the auction
• Fill out this form to offer a donation of an item or service
• Auction website
• Buy Levine Querido books at Bookshop.org
• Full interview with Arthur Levine about Levine Querido (July 2023)
• Levine Querido website

Look at the SHOW NOTES to find a transcript and more!

SHOW NOTES: https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2023/08/the-jake-show.html

in Joshua S. Levy's middle grade novel, The Jake Show, TV-obsessed Jake sees life in terms of shows. His parents divorce is like his favorite show getting cancelled, and now he's stuck playing two roles, Yaakov for his religious mother and Jacob for his secular father. Jake has to concoct a web of lies to get to a summer camp where he can just be himself. Will that end well? Tune in to my conversation with Joshua Levy and find out!

LEARN MORE:

• Joshua Levy's website: JoshuaSimonLevy.com
• TV Tropes: The Two Timer Date

Look at the SHOW NOTES to find a transcript and more!

SHOW NOTES: https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2023/07/levine-querido-and-100k-books-challenge.html

Levine Querido is an independent publishing house founded by legendary editor Arthur Levine. He left his own imprint, Arthur A. Levine Books at Scholastic after 23 years, and he started Levine Querido in 2019 to showcase gorgeous diverse books by creators from underrepresented backgrounds - and he's been very successful, winning award after award. For a non-Jewish publisher, Levine Querido publishes a lot of Jewish books, so I've been wanting to chat with Arthur for a while. When he announced that Team LQ had set a goal to sell 100,000 books by September 1st of this year, I knew it was the right time to have him on the show.

LEARN MORE:

• LQ's 100K Books Challenge
• Levine Querido website
• Arthur's Tikkun Olam suggestion: VOTE!

Look at the SHOW NOTES to find a transcript and more!

SHOW NOTES: https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2023/06/pride-month-special-with-aj-sass.html

It's June and that means LGBTQ+ Pride Month, the perfect time to talk to author A.J. Sass. Andrew Sass is known for writing middle grade books featuring respectful portrayals of trans and nonbinary characters, with neurodivergent and casual Jewish representation included as well. I was excited to talk with them about a few books: debut novel Ana on the Edge from 2020, Ellen Outside the Lines, which was a 2023 Sydney Taylor Honor Book, and the new Camp QUILTBAG, co-written with Nicole Melleby. I thoroughly enjoyed all of these thoughtful, funny, and heartfelt books.

Over half of the books currently being challenged by bigoted extremists are targeted for their LGBTQ+ content. In support of the queer Jewish community, for Pride Month I will post an LGBTQ+ Jewish kidlit title each day in June on The Book of Life's Facebook page at Facebook.com/Bookoflifepodcast. It should go without saying that gender identity and/or age appropriate sexual content does not automatically equal porn or obscenity. Children and teens are human beings who have bodies and experience age-appropriate sexual feelings, and sometimes they need books that will help them understand their bodies and feelings more fully. Queer books save lives, and I'll be proud to share with you excellent examples of queer Jewish representation all month long.

LEARN MORE:

• Visit A.J. Sass's website, Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram (look for skating videos here!)
• Buy Ana on the Edge, Ellen Outside the Lines, and Camp QUILTBAG
• Forthcoming work Just Shy of Ordinary, On All Other Nights, and Shabbat Is...
• Tikkun Olam suggestion: Fight censorship! Buy banned books, request them and borrow them from your library, write letters to the editor, call your representatives, and attend library/school board meetings.
• Daily LGBTQ+ Jewish reading recommendations from The Book of Life, June 2023

• A Million Quiet Revolutions by Robin Gow
• When the Angels Left the Old Country by Sacha Lamb [Book of Life guest January 2023]
• Camp by L.C. Rosen

• The Best Liars in Riverview and The House That Whispers by Lin Thompson
• Too Bright to See, Different Kinds of Fruit, and really anything by Kyle Lukoff
• Moonflower by Kacen Callender
• Sir Callie and the Champions of Helston by Esme Symes-Smith
• Lily and Dunkin by Donna Gephart (has some casual Jewish representation)

Visit the SHOW NOTES to find a transcript and more!

SHOW NOTES: https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2023/05/a-sky-full-of-song.html

When I read Susan Lynn Meyer's middle grade novel, A Sky Full of Song, I was swept away by her descriptions of the North Dakota prairie and really touched by the characters' struggles with prejudice, assimilation, and identity. This story is one of those in which the specific is also the universal. It showcases a quintessential American experience and at he same time, a very Jewish experience. I thought it would be a perfect interview to bring to you this May for Jewish American Heritage Month. Click on SHOW NOTES above to find a transcript and more.

LEARN MORE:

• Visit Susan Lynn Meyer's website
• Buy A Sky Full of Song
• Tikkun Olam suggestion: support American Prairie
• Visit Heidi's Jewish American Heritage Month resource
• Keep an eye out for a Mother's Day interview on May 15 about She's a Mensch at BookOfLifePodcast.com

SHOW NOTES: https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2023/03/a-walk-on-jewish-side.html

Jewish identity can be complicated, especially for people who come from a mixed background. We are starting to see this reality acknowledged in middle grade and young adult fiction, with characters who are working to figure out what being Jewish means to them, or who are trying to better integrate the different parts of their heritage, who don't feel like they are enough. For this episode, I've called together three authors whose novels explore this topic: Primrose Madayag Knazan, author of the YA novel Lesson in Fusion, and middle grade authors Aimee Lucido, who wrote Recipe for Disaster, and Amanda Panitch, who wrote The Two Wrong Halves of Ruby Taylor. Join us for a virtual panel discussion about identity, a walk on the Jewish side. See SHOW NOTES for links to the authors' websites, books, recipes, and tikkun olam suggestions as well as a transcript.

SHOW NOTES: https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2023/02/shohams-bangle.html

Sarah Sassoon's debut picture book Shoham's Bangle (Kar-Ben) was named a 2023 Sydney Taylor Notable Book by the Association of Jewish Libraries. Based on Sarah's family history, it's the story of a Jewish family's escape from Iraq to Israel, and a rare example of Mizrahi representation in kidlit. See SHOW NOTES for links to Sarah's website, a transcript, and more.