The Book of Life: Jewish Kidlit (Mostly)
The Book of Life is an interview-format podcast about Jewish kidlit, mostly, with occasional coverage of Jewish YA/adult books, music, film and web, established in December 2005.
Host: Heidi Rabinowitz
Sponsors: Feldman Children's Library at Congregation B'nai Israel of Boca Raton, Florida & the Association of Jewish Libraries
- Update frequency
- every 19 days
- Average duration
- 23 minutes
- Episodes
- 333
- Years Active
- 2005 - 2025
Sweep: The Story of a Girl and Her Monster
SHOW NOTES: https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2019/05/sweep-story-of-girl-and-her-monster.html
May 1 is May Day, the chimney sweeps’ holiday. It’s the perfect day to bring you a podcast about Swee…
The Length of a String
SHOW NOTES: https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2019/04/the-length-of-string.html
The Length of a String won a 2019 Sydney Taylor Honor Award in the Older Readers Category. It's a middle grade nove…
The Kosher Baker
SHOW NOTES: https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-kosher-baker.html
Paula Shoyer is known as The Kosher Baker. I met her at Limmud, a one day conference of Jewish learning on a wide variety …
Craig Taubman Is Coming To Town
Craig Taubman is coming to Congregation B'nai Israel in Boca Raton! If you will be in South Florida, don't miss this show! Call 561-241-8118 for tickets or BUY TICKETS HERE. Listen to a special mess…
Fania's Heart
SHOW NOTES: https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2019/03/fanias-heart-birthday-card-in-auschwitz.html
The Book of Life’s Canadian Correspondent Anne Dublin spoke to author Anne Renaud after she won th…
Meet Me at the Well
SHOW NOTES: https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2019/02/meet-me-at-well.html
Before I moved from Massachusetts back to Florida, I visited with Jane Yolen and Barbara Diamond Goldin to talk about their…
The 2019 Sydney Taylor Book Awards, Revealed!
SHOW NOTES: https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-2019-sydney-taylor-book-manuscript.html
Susan Kusel is the chair of the Sydney Taylor Book Award committee of the Association of Jewish Lib…
Beyond the Holocaust and Holidays
SHOW NOTES: https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2019/01/beyond-holocaust-and-holidays-writing.html
"Beyond the Holocaust and Holidays: Who Are We and What Are We Writing?" is a symposium for Jewish …
Stand Up: Social Justice Storytime
Hillary Saxton is a children's librarian at the Cambridge (Massachusetts) Public Library, and the creator of the event series "Stand Up! Storytime for Social Justice." She was originally scheduled to…
All-of-a-Kind Family Hanukkah
Remember All-of-a-Kind Family? It's the classic chapter book by Sydney Taylor, of five sisters living on the Lower East Side in the early 20th century. Now Emily Jenkins and Paul O. Zelinsky have cre…
The Missing Voices of Moe and Mo
Jane Breskin Zalben is an artist/illustrator and the author of over 50 books for children. Her recent picture book, A Moon for Moe and Mo, was featured in the Missing Voice picture book discussion g…
Light the Menorah!
At the 2018 Association of Jewish Libraries conference, I bumped into author Jacqueline Jules. She's been on the podcast before in 2014 to talk about Never Say a Mean Word Again. Her new picture boo…
The Girl with the Red Balloon
The Girl with the Red Balloon is a magical time travel, historical fiction, kind-of-sort-of Holocaust book that won a Sydney Taylor Honor in the Teen Readers Category for 2018. I met the author, K…
Barbara Bietz and The Sundown Kid
Before I moved back to Florida from Massachusetts, my friend Barbara Bietz, author of The Sundown Kid: A Southwestern Shabbat, came to Amherst, MA for a workshop about Jewish kidlit. We got together…
American Golem
American Golem by Marc Lumer is a very funny picture book about a mud monster making a new life for itself in New York City. Vicki Weber of Apples & Honey Press told me all about it at the Associatio…
Social Justice and Jewish Children's Books
In June 2018, Book of Life Host Heidi Rabinowitz participated on a panel with author Leslea Newman and Horn Book editors Elissa Gershowitz and Shoshana Flax, at the Association of Jewish Libraries an…
2018 Sydney Taylor Book Awards
Susan Kusel is the chair of the Sydney Taylor Book Award committee of the Association of Jewish Libraries. She joined us by Skype from her home in Falls Church, VA. to talk about the 2018 winners of …
Teaser: The 2018 Sydney Taylor Book Awards
The winners of the 2018 Sydney Taylor Book Awards for the best in Jewish children's and teen literature will be announced on January 10, 2018. Chair Susan Kusel gave The Book of Life an exclusive int…
Grand Finale
As The Book of Life goes on hiatus, we wrap up twelve years of programming with a Grand Finale. We hear from listeners and guests about their favorite interviews, and play clips from those episodes.
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The Many Faces of the Pirkei Avot
Group interview with Jessica Deutsch, creator of The Illustrated Pirkei Avot: A Graphic Novel of Jewish Ethics, and with Lois Shenker and Rabbi Eve Posen, co-authors of Pirkei Imahot: The Wisdom of M…