Three women appropriate the power of prayer in these takes on life’s sacred moments. “Mean girls:” why Jewish girls are especially implicated. The stay-at-work mom tells all.
Table of contents Get the issueWe meet to consider God, But first, introductions all around. Adam,raised Orthodox, confesseshe ate his first bacon at Harvardand fell away from religion in the arms of a Methodist girl.A... Read more »
When I wrote Cain and Abel: Finding the Fruits of Peace, I wanted to tell a story about violence and murder in a way that does not frighten children, but... Read more »
I’m not afraid of sad stories, because sadness is born from the clash between hopes and reality. Jewish tradition is based on asking questions and not taking things for granted.... Read more »
I write mainly for adults, but of my four novels for young people two depict traumatic situations. Storm Among the Palms (1975), for example, describes how during the Second World... Read more »
Once, when giving a talk about my book. Heather Has Two Mommies, a lesbian mom asked me when I thought she should tell her child that some people hate lesbians.... Read more »
Last year when I was teaching children’s book writing in Tirana, Albania, a writer from Kosovo asked me how I would deal with war in a picture book. I replied... Read more »
Because I’m a former children’s librarian I have a very strong opinion about biblio therapy—using books to treat or solve problems. I do not believe that a children’s book should be... Read more »
As a Jewish and black writer, confronting evil is something that has been an element of my work since To Be A Slave (1969). Jewish and black children have experienced the world’s... Read more »
My Yiddish name is Riva. I was born in Lodz, Poland. I was thirteen years old when the Nazis invaded Poland and filled my life with pain and horrors. I... Read more »
I am the editor of Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, books that chronicle the lives of three resourceful, charming siblings who are extremely unlucky. After their parents perish... Read more »
Our Jewish past is a deep pit covered with fragile wrapping, and if once our goal was to deny the existence of this pit, and to hide its terribleness from... Read more »
When writing for teens, I always try to speak in a voice that’s a hundred percent honest. Sometimes embarrassingly honest. We can hide from the pain in our lives (and... Read more »
The essential is hope. There are many trying situations that we can struggle through if we have hope that things can perhaps get better. The process of writing is in... Read more »
How do books tell the world’s bad news to children? The answer that comes first to my mind is “inadvertently!” While writing The Endless Steppe, I never thought of it as... Read more »
The worst news is that nobody is going to get out of this world alive, but I don’t like to advertise that. My own grandchildren are very conscious of death.... Read more »
The great success of Harry Potter I attribute, among other things, to the fact that this series goes back to the principles of children’s literature of an earlier era, portraying... Read more »
From her initial gestation in the womb to her emergence into a widening orbit—a world of air, sound, light, concrete and abstract objects and the presence of other living creatures—a... Read more »
In our chaotic world of violent and brutal changes children need stories that will awaken in them such notions as fear and sadness. These emotions offer a catharsis that children cannot... Read more »
I’m usually a happy-ending writer, and I’ll probably go on being one. My worlds have troubles and villains, but I control the balance, so that my heroine stands a chance... Read more »
If I were writing about this now for children, I would first of all tell the truth, but avoid heightening it too sensationally the way the media does for adults.... Read more »
Especially in times of troubles, the desire to help is overwhelming and, of course, a writer’s best way of helping is with a story. However, it is important to remember... Read more »
Mendelsohn gives us traditional Jewish texts we’ve never really considered before, all about breasts and their natural uses. Plus…Rabbi Susan Schnur in conversation with Susan Weidman Schneider on God-the-Breast and more.
When the time feels just right, Grossman goes modestly out into the chill evening air and says a prayer to honor the tissues which sustained her baby daughter in the womb.
How an otherwise non-religious woman finds herself transformed by tefillin
True confessions from an executive woman who sets the bar very high, finds her husband can’t scale it, and makes other arrangements.
The “mean girls” issue is nothing new to Habonim-Dror, a progressive Labor-Zionist youth movement with seven summer camps across North- America. Modeled after the kibbutz system, Habonim-Dror camps are based... Read more »
