Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

“Not Just for Sunday School: Jewish Books for Kids”: A Panel Discussion

11/08/11

I am honored and thrilled to have been invited by Sarah Aronson, author of Beyond Lucky, to moderate a panel of Jewish writers on November 17 at the Wellesley Free Library. We will be joined by Liz Suneby, author of The Mitzvah Project, Jane Kohuth, author of Estie the Mensch, and Susan Meyer, author of Black Radishes, for a program entitled “Not Just for Sunday School: Jewish Books for Kids.” This exciting event is sponsored by Wellesley Books, my local Independent Book Store in support of National Jewish Book Month which runs from November 21- December 21, 2011.

If you are anywhere near Wellesley, please plan to join us on Thursday evening, November 17 at 7:00 PM at the Wellesley Free Library, 530 Washington Street, Wellesley, MA 02482. See you there!

Happy Reading,

Kathy B.

©2011 Kathleen M. Bloomfield and forwordsbooks.com all rights reserved.

The September Jewish Book Carnival

09/15/11

forwordsbooks is thrilled to be hosting this month’s Jewish Book Carnival, a gathering of blogs about Jewish books and other happenings in the Jewish world.  Please visit this month’s participants and comment on their web sites making sure you tell them you saw their post at the September Jewish Book Carnival.

Would you like to get to know more about the authors who write your favorite books?  Or perhaps you are looking for a little background music while you read? Check out these fantastic websites:

Listen to The Book of Life’s newest podcast episode featuring Sarah Darer Littman talking about her novel Life, After, a 2011 Sydney Taylor Honor Book for teens. Her novels are always brave, taking on subjects that others might fear to talk about.

Barbara Krasner at The Whole Megillah: The Writer’s Resource for Jewish-Themed Children’s Books provides a very special look inside the book with an Author-Agent-Editor Three-in-one Special Notebook about OyMG byAmy Fellner Dominy

Jewish Book Council’s Intern, Alyssa Berlin, discusses the trend in “Reading with Soundtracks.” This is an awesome look at the connection between books and music. Be sure you have your MP3 player and ear buds on hand.


Erika Dreifus shares a Q&A with author Anna Solomon about THE LITTLE BRIDE, Solomon’s new historical novel featuring a Jewish mail-order bride who travels from Odessa and lands in South Dakota.

With so many new books to choose from each month, it is wonderful to have dedicated reviewers to let us know about the best of the bunch.

Amy Meltzer at Homeshuling: A Jewish Parenting Blog provides an excellent review of the new Kar-Ben book, Joseph and the Sabbath Fish by Eric Kimmel in her blog Joseph and the Sabbath Fish, or I Love Eric Kimmel, Part Two.

Barbara Krasner at The Whole Megillah: The Writer’s Resource for Jewish-Themed Children’s Books reviews  OyMG by Amy Fellner Dominy

BostonBibliophile is taking the Art of the Novella Reading Challenge.  Read the review of her third novella, Stempenyu: A Jewish Romance by Sholem Aleichem, and follow her progress toward her goal of reading six novellas in 30 days.

Also from the Jewish Book Council, guest blogger Wayne Hoffman (Sweet Like Sugar) offers a Gay Jewish Reading List .

Visit Sylvia Rouss’ website to read her newest book, Jognau, the Dreamer, an original story by Sylvia Rouss and Raoul Wallenberg Prize winner, Ambassador Asher Naim, illustrated by Dawn Phillips.  Ambassador Naim and Sylvia have donated the story to the Scholarship Fund for Ethiopian Jews. Sylvia’s son Jordan, an attorney, and his good friend Geoffrey Bennett, an NPR producer, volunteered to produce and narrate the animated version which you can also see on the site.

Then hop over to Barbara Bietz’s  “Jewish Books for Children with Author Barbara Bietz” for some inside information from Sylvia about how she came to meet Ambassador Asher Naim and subsequently write a book in partnership with him. It is always very interesting how the stars align in writers’ lives.

Jonathan Kirsch reviews Portraits in Literature: The Jews of Poland, An Anthology edited by Hava Bromberg Ben-Zvi, reminding us that while over half the Jewish victims of the Holocaust were Polish Jews, “Poland was the seat of a vibrant and enduring Jewish civilization that survives on the printed page and, in a real sense, in many of our own ideas about what it means to be Jewish.”

Here at forwordsbooks, we kicked off the New Year with “The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far: Honoring One’s Parents/Kibud Av v’Em,” a look at books that support this most difficult of all commandments.

And last but not least, learn how the research can have a bigger impact on the writer than the writing, in this fascinating blog by Linda K. Wertheimer:

In “Visiting Mosques Teaches Countless Lessons, “Jewish Muse blogger Linda K. Wertheimer recounts the lessons she learned when she visited mosques while shadowing middle school students as they learned about world religions. She was surprised at how much she learned along with them.

As always there is much to read, explore and learn from each of these wonderful websites.  Don’t forget to tell them you were here and where you heard about them, if you drop by for a visit. Next month’s Carnival will be hosted at Homeshuling. For more information about the Jewish Book Carnival and a list of all the participants, please visit the Association of Jewish Libraries’ Jewish Book Carnival blog. Thanks for stopping by!

Wishing you a sweet, healthy and book-filled New Year.

Happy Reading,

Kathy B.

©2011 Kathleen M. Bloomfield and forwordsbooks.com all rights reserved.
I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you click on a book title referred to on my web site and purchase it from Amazon,

I may receive a very small commission on your purchase.

You will incur no additional cost, however.

I appreciate your support.

A time for silence and a time for speaking

08/30/11

I have spent the past several months preparing for this upcoming New Year – 5772. I have been

  • Thinking about the new idea I began last year, Speak Volumes: A Jewish Values Based Family Reading Program, and how I want to enrich it this year.
  • Reading a ton of books, Jewish and secular.
  • Celebrating my son’s graduation from college and my mother’s 80th birthday.
  • Meeting and learning from many wonderful authors.
  • Working on writing my own book.
  • Working at several part time jobs that are creative and fun.

The outcome of all of this and more is many stories, thoughts and books to share. I am looking forward to the upcoming weeks and months.

Happy Reading,

Kathy B.

©2011 Kathleen M. Bloomfield and forwordsbooks.com all rights reserved.
Books used in this review came from my own collection, my local public library or the publisher as review copies.
I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you click on a book title referred to on my web site and purchase it from Amazon,

I may receive a very small commission on your purchase.

You will incur no additional cost, however.

I appreciate your support.

This Sacred Land – Eretz Yisrael/Israel

06/12/11

For the past few months I have been writing book review articles for Boston’s Combined Jewish Philanthropies’ Family Connection Newsletter. You can read them at JewishBoston.com.  In April, I was asked to write about Israel books for young children and their families. I received such positive response to the article, that I am expanding it for my blog this month. After all, it is June and no better time to think about taking a trip to Eretz (land) Yisrael (Israel)/The Land of Israel.

First Rain. By Charlotte Herman. Illustrated by Kathryn Mitter. Albert Whitman & Company, © 2010.   Abby and her parents are making Aliyah/moving to Israel. They are all so excited, but sad to be leaving Grandma behind in America. Abby and her Grandma send many letters and emails back and forth about all that Abby is learning. (Ages 4-8)

Chicken Man. Written and illustrated by Michelle Edwards. NewSouth Books, © 2009. Rody lives on a kibbutz in Israel. After trying many jobs, it is clear that the chicken house is the best place for him to work. (ages 5-9)

Snow in Jerusalem. By Deborah DaCosta. Illustrated by Cornelius Van Wright & Ying-Hwa Hu. Albert Whitman & Company, © 2001.  Avi lives in the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem, Hamudi lives in the Muslim Quarter. Unknown to them, they are both taking care of the same white cat. When they find out, a big surprise is waiting for them. (Ages 5-9)

The Man Who Flies with Birds. By Carole Garbuny Vogel and Yossi Leshem. Kar-Ben Publishing, © 2009. An Israeli bird lover, scientist and aeronautics specialist, combines his passions to save lives, protect the environment and bring peace to Israel. (Ages 7-11)

Sharing Our Homeland: Palestinian and Jewish Children at Summer Peace Camp. By Trish Marx. Illustrated by Cindy Karp. Lee & Low Books, © 2010. In an attempt to foster peace and understanding between Palestinian-Israeli and Jewish-Israeli children, Menashe Summer Peace Camp was created. This is how Alya, an Israeli Palestinian girl and Yuval, an Israeli Jewish boy, experienced their summer at Peace Camp. (Ages 8-12)

Samir & Yonatan. By Daniella Carmi. Translated by Yael Lotan. Scholastic, © 2000. Samir, a young Palestinian boy from the Gaza Strip, finds himself in an Israeli hospital for knee surgery following a bicycle accident. He is in a ward filled with Jewish children. He is befriended by Yonatan, who is in the hospital for hand surgery. Together, they learn from and about each other what it might take to build a better world. (Ages 10-14)

Three Wishes: Palestinian and Israeli Children Speak. By Deborah Ellis. Groundwood Books, © 2004. Interviews with children living in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank about their experiences, hopes and dreams as children living in a war-torn country. (Ages 11-14

Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood. By Ibtisam Barakat. Farrar, Straus Giroux, © 2007. A child’s viewpoint of growing up on the West Bank during the 1967 Six Day War. (Ages 11-15)

Freefall. By Anna Levine. Greenwillow, © 2008. Aggie is going into the Israeli army, as all Israeli citizens must do at the age of eighteen. However, instead of choosing a desk job, she decides to try out for an elite combat unit, even though she will have to gain weight and go through a series of harsh training camps to do it. (Ages 13-16)

A Bottle in the Gaza Sea. By Valerie Zenatti. Translated by Adriana Hunter. Bloomsbury, © 2005. Winner of the Syndey Taylor Award. Tal Levine wants to correspond with a Palestinian, so she asks her soldier brother to throw a bottle containing a letter with her email address into the Gaza Sea. Surprisingly, she gets a response from “Gazaman.” Their exchanges provide a remarkable insight into this difficult region. (Ages 14-18)

Reading these books should provide you and your family with a solid overview of the modern Jewish experience. However, as I did last month and will from now on, I have prepared a list of discussion questions and activities that parents and/or teachers can use when reading these books together with children to reinforce your understanding of Eretz Yisrael/The Land of Israel and learn together about the country that is sacred to Jews, Muslims and Christians. If you would be interested in using this material, please see the Family Reading Program Section of my website for June/Sivan. Wishing you dreams of vacations far away, perhaps on the shores of the Mediterranean in Tel Aviv!

Happy Reading,

Kathy B.

©2011 Kathleen M. Bloomfield and forwordsbooks.com all rights reserved.
Books used in this review came from my own collection, my local public library or the publisher as review copies.
I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you click on a book title referred to on my web site and purchase it from Amazon,

I may receive a very small commission on your purchase.

You will incur no additional cost, however.

I appreciate your support.

Zachor/Remembrance…In the News

05/04/11

It is amazing how many news stories focus on this month’s value: zachor/remembrance. Just today two got my attention:

I will leave it to you to read the stories surrounding these newsworthy events. Of interest to me is that craters on Mars and 29 consecutive hits in baseball games are both cause for remembering significant moments in history.

Just this past Sunday, May 1 was Yom Hashoah/Holocaust Remembrance Day.  Events were organized all around the country and all over the world to remember the 6 million Jews and 5 million others individuals who were murdered by the Nazis during World War II. Even more than 65 years after the events of the war took place, memorials, museums and tributes are being created to honor the memories of individuals and groups who were part of that experience.

Whether it is the Holocaust, manned space flight or as-yet-unbroken baseball records, it is important that our children understand why we remember, and how we memorialize events 1 year, 5 years, or 40, 70, or even 1000s of years after they have taken place. This may seem like a large undertaking, but with the benefit of a few good books, a few helpful questions and some fun activities, the task is not so difficult at all.

Happy Reading,

Kathy B.

©2011 Kathleen M. Bloomfield and forwordsbooks.com all rights reserved.
Books used in this review were provided by my local public library.
I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you click on a book title referred to on my web site and purchase it from Amazon,

I may receive a very small commission on your purchase.

You will incur no additional cost, however.

I appreciate your support.

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