Posts Tagged ‘association of Jewish Libraries’

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.

The Results are In…

01/10/11

The Association of Jewish Libraries’ Sydney Taylor Book Award Committee announced its 2011 winners today.

And the Winners are:

The Sydney Taylor Book Award Winner for Younger Readers:

Gathering Sparks by Howard Schwartz with illustrations by Kristina Swarner. Roaring Brook Press, an imprint of Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group. A simple and beautiful story about Tikkun Olam/Repairing the World.

The Sydney Taylor Book Award Winner for Older Readers:

Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword by Barry Deutsch. Amulet Books, an imprint of Abrams. A delightful. The tag line says it all,a story about “yet another troll-fighting 11-year-old Orthodox Jewish girl.”

The Sydney Taylor Book Award Winner for Teen Readers:

The Things a Brother Knows by Dana Reinhardt. Wendy Lamb Books, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books. An extraordinary novel about the impact of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder on a family and especially on the relationship between two brothers.

Sydney Taylor Honor Award Winners for Younger Readers:

Modeh Ani: A Good Morning Book by Sarah Gershman with illustrations by Kristina Swarner. EKS Publishing. A marvelous way to start your day.

Emma’s Poem: The Voice of the Statue of Liberty by Linda Glaser with illustrations by Claire A. Nivola. Houghton Mifflin Books for Children. Provides a real understanding of the woman behind the poem at the base of the Statue of Liberty.

Cakes and Miracles: A Purim Tale by Barbara Diamond Goldin with illustrations by Jaime Zollars. Marshall Cavendish Children. The classic Purim story is back with some minor revisions and beautiful new illustrations.

Sydney Taylor Honor Award Winners for Older Readers:

Resistance by Carla Jablonski with illustrations by Leland Purvis. First Second, an imprint of Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group. An exceptional graphic novel about a group of young people who help a friend find his family and leave France.


One Is Not a Lonely Number by Evelyn Krieger. YM Books, an imprint of YALDAH Media, Inc. The one book on this list I have not yet read, but as soon as I do, I will report on it.

Black Radishes by Susan Lynn Meyer. Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books. A Holocaust story based in France and involving the Resistance, children and a great deal of wit to effect the escape of a family of Jews.

Sydney Taylor Honor Award Winners for Teen Readers:

Hush by Eishes Chayil. Walker & Company, a division of Bloomsbury Publishing. An incredibly courageous account of incest within the Orthodox Community in Brooklyn, New York.

Once by Morris Glietzman. Henry Holt and Company. A somewhat fairy tale like story of a Jewish child’s experiences during WWII.

Life, After by Sarah Darer Littman. Scholastic Press, an imprint of Scholastic, Inc. A teenage girl and her family must make a new life in America following terrorist bombings and financial ruin in Argentina.

In addition to these exceptional titles, the Committee designated 27 books as “Notable.” You can find the Notable List by visiting the AJL Blog.

Congratulations, Mazel Tov and Yasher Koach to the Sydney Taylor Award Committee for accomplishing the difficult assignment of reading all the books sent to them, reviewing and rating each one and reaching consensus on the winners. This is no small task. Whether I agree or disagree with their choices will make wonderful material for future articles. However, today belongs to the Committee and all these wonderful authors and illustrators.  They should bask in the glory of being recognized for a job well done. Kol Ha Kovod/ well done and Kol Tuv/best wishes to everyone involved.

Happy Reading,

Kathy B.


©2011 Kathleen M. Bloomfield and forwordsbooks.com all rights reserved.
Books used in this review came from a variety of sources including my local public library, my personal collection and publishers.
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.

So Far Away

01/21/10

I am posting this from my sister’s home in Southern California where it has been raining so hard I fear we will be building an ark shortly in order to sail back to Massachusetts.  There is much to report since my last post.

I spent my weekend at the American Library Association‘s Midwinter Conference in Boston. My “job” was to walk around the Exhibit Hall and find the publisher’s who had Sydney Taylor Award Winners, Honor Books and Notable books and bring them congratulations and mazel tovs on behalf of the Association of Jewish Libraries and the Sydney Taylor Award Committee and also provide them with gold and silver seals for the winning books.  It was very exciting to meet the publishers and some of the editors responsible for these excellent books. Even more exciting, I got to tell them a bit about forwordsbooks and what I do.  Call me crazy, but I love publishers and exhibit halls. I have a stack of books at home that I am so looking forward to telling you about.

On Saturday evening, I joined up with the ALATweetup and met a number of interesting people from the kidlitosphere, kidlit publishing and children’s magazines.  I will admit, I went out of my way to say hello to Elizabeth Burns of A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy, who I consider a STAR of the kidlitosphere.  We all have a right to our idols. Well, she is one of mine.  As always, Ms. Burns was gracious. I felt my Tweetup was well spent.

Immediately following,  I headed over the bridge to the Boston World Trade Center to listen to Brian Stokes Mitchell talk about the new book he worked on with Harriet Ziefert called Lights on Broadway from Blue Apple Press.  He sang two songs and let me tell you, this man has a gift from God.  When you hear someone refer to their voice as their instrument – this is what they are talking about.  I would have sat in that chair in that hotel conference room all night and listened to that man sing whatever he wanted. There was no theater orchestra, professional sound system, Broadway stage lighting, nothing.  Just “Stokes” (as everyone was calling him), a cordless microphone and a piano player.  Thank you very much…I was in heaven.

What could be better than that? Listening to him describe sitting in his public library as a kid, checking out every Broadway musical in the collection and sitting in a special room they had listening to the music. Hearing him describe librarians as his heroes. Watching him clap and bow to the librarians in the room.  All followed by his taking the time to have his picture taken, shaking hands, hugging and providing autographs for anyone who asked. We have a word for this – Mensch.

I was not able to attend the Awards Ceremony on Monday morning, but I did view the recording of the event.  How very exciting.  I was happy to see that on of our Sydney Taylor Honor Books, A Faraway Island by Annika Thor was awarded the Batchelder Award for the most outstanding children’s book originally published in a language other than English.  I was also excited that Jerry Pinkney’s The Lion & the Mouse won the Caldecott Award having seen him discuss the book at the School Library Journal Day of Dialogue last May.  As for all the rest of the award winners, let’s just say I have a lot of reading to do!

And now I am in Southern California, as I said, battling a rainstorm of “Biblical” proportions.  I am way behind in my Comment Challenge activities, but hope to catch up in the next couple of days.  I will keep you posted. Until then,

Happy Reading,

Kathy B.

And the Winners Are…

01/11/10

The Association of Jewish Libraries has just announced the Sydney Taylor Book Award winners for 2010. They are:

The 2010 Sydney Taylor Book Award Winner

for YOUNGER READERS

  • New Year at the Pier. April Halprin Wayland. Illustrated by Stéphane Jorisch.Dial Books for Young Readers, 2009.

The 2010 Sydney Taylor Honor Award Winners

for YOUNGER READERS

The 2010 Sydney Taylor Book Award Winner

for OLDER READERS

The 2010 Sydney Taylor Honor Award Winners

for OLDER READERS

The 2010 Sydney Taylor Book Award Winner

for TEEN READERS

The 2010 Sydney Taylor Honor Award Winners

for TEEN READERS

  • Lost. Jacqueline Davies. Marshall Cavendish, 2009.
  • Naomi’s Song. Selma Kritzer Silverberg. Jewish Publication Society, 2009.

The 2010 Sydney Taylor Notable Book for ALL AGES

____________________________________________________________

It has been my honor and my privilege to be a member of the Sydney Taylor Book Award Committee for the past four years. My term ends with this award year. I have mixed feelings about saying goodbye to an opportunity that has brought me back in touch with my passion for Jewish children’s literature and with the people who ignite the fires for that passion in others – Jewish librarians and educators.

On one hand, I am now free to read and review whichever books I want. This means, without naming names or titles, if a self-published work comes to my door and I know just by looking at it that there is good reasons why it is self-published, I no longer have to go through the effort of reading the book, giving it a score and writing a review. It means that I am able to search for those secular books with Jewish values content that I feel are so important to have in our libraries. It means that I may, on occasion be able to sit back and enjoy reading an adult book just for myself once or twice a year.

On the other hand, I am truly going to miss my interaction with my fellow committee members. You have probably heard the joke about 3 Jews, 4 opinions. Well, imagine a committee of six Jewish women – Professional Jewish women – librarians, booksellers, authors, educators, managers – Opinionated professional Jewish women. Now imagine that these six women have spent a year reading, scoring and reviewing approximately 150 Jewish children’s books. They must arrive at a consensus as to which book will win the top prize in each of three categories: Younger Readers, Older Readers and Teen Readers. Following that discussion, an agreement about Honor books takes place and then a discussion about Notable books.

Somehow, over a period of about 7-10 days, with a group that spans the continent and all its time zones, the Committee manages to pull this off every year, professionally, amicably, tactfully. Our significant others know that during this period we are not to be far from email access, and don’t even think about  talking to us as our minds our on the books, the books, the books, the Awarding of the Books. I wonder, do the Newbery and Caldecott Committees go through similar tzuris (Yiddish for troubles)? In the end, we all agree, we are happy and next year’s books are showing up on the doorstep. The cycle begins again.

Fortunately, during my time on the Committee, I have been blessed to serve under two remarkable Committee Chairs, Rachel Kamin and Kathe Pinchuck. It takes stamina, political savvy and emotional armor to sift through all the comments and steer this group in the a direction that will lead to consensus, both Rachel and Kathe managed the task perfectly.

So now the winners have been announced. In July, I will join my colleagues in Seattle for the AJL Convention, where we will discuss some of the books that did not make the list in our presentation “The Sydney Taylor Committee Tells All.” It is one of the high points of the Conference. Would you like to join us? Become a member of the Association of Jewish Libraries and meet us in Seattle.

Happy Reading!

Kathy B.

PS  There were also twenty-two Notable Books selected by the Committee for 2010. All the Winners and the Notable titles can be found at www.sydneytaylorbookaward.blogspot.com.

©2010 Kathleen M. Bloomfield and forwordsbooks.com all rights reserved.
Books used in this review were provided by the publishers cited.
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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