Author Simone Elkeles (author of the "How to Ruin" series) and kidlit expert and professor June Cummins discuss trends in Jewish YA chick lit at the Association of Jewish Libraries convention in Chicago, Illinois. You can hear June's lecture at this conference, "Bat Mitzvah and Beyond" on the AJL Podcast.
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[I wrote this post for The Sydney Taylor Book Award blog, but I thought it might be of interest to Book of Life followers as well so I am reproducing it in full for you.]
School Library Journal broke the news today (see obit) that author Esther Hautzig died on Sunday, November 1 at the age of 79. Esther Rudomin Hautzig was the author of the memoir The Endless Steppe, about her experiences in Siberia, where her family was exiled during WWII, ultimately saving their lives. The book was the winner of AJL's first book award in 1968 (before the award was even called the "Sydney Taylor").
Esther attended the 2004 Association of Jewish Libraries convention in Brooklyn, NY, where she received a standing ovation during the Awards Banquet in honor of her status as inaugural award winner. Besides winning the gold medal for The Endless Steppe in 1968, Esther also received a silver Sydney Taylor Honor Award in 1992 for Riches and silver again in 2002 for A Picture of Grandmother.
In 2002, School Library Journal included a rather tepid review of A Picture of Grandmother, calling it "a slight story." Feeling that the reviewer had missed the point, I wrote a letter to the editor explaining that anyone who knew the "backstory" of Hautzig's childhood, a warm family life disrupted by the war, would understand that A Picture of Grandmother was a poignant tribute to the lives of those who were lost. It celebrated the beautiful normalcy of their lives instead of bemoaning their deaths.
After the letter was printed in SLJ, I received an envelope with the name "Esther Hautzig" in the upper left hand corner. I almost hyperventilated. I had just finished listening to the audiobook of The Endless Steppe the week before, and still felt very close to the "character" of Esther's younger self. To my shock and delight, Esther had read my defense of her book in SLJ and had sent me a heartfelt letter and a packet of articles about Holocaust writing for children. She thanked me for the positive review I'd written for the Association of Jewish Libraries Newsletter (see below for review text) and she said "Your letter to SLJ made me cry. The original review (and the reviewer's response) made me cry for quite another reason. Your support of the premise, and my reason for writing it, was balm for my soul."
This was perhaps the most important thing an author has ever said to me, because it made me realize that the audience for reviews is not just fellow librarians or parents shopping for their children, it's the authors themselves. Esther taught me how very important it is to review books respectfully, and to respond to a book not only with emotion but with substantive critiques.
Just that exchange of letters would have been enough (dayenu!) but I was fortunate to have my cake and eat it too. Not only did Esther join us at our AJL convention in Brooklyn in 2004, she also met me when I traveled to New York on other occasions, getting together for a cozy dinner at a German restaurant, for a back-room tour of the Donnell Library where she worked, or for an afternoon tea break. Although I only knew her briefly, and probably spent less than 24 hours with her when you add it all together, she made me feel as if we were intimate friends. She gave me a copy of her book Remember Who You Are: Stories About Being Jewish and a classical piano CD by her husband Walter, a concert pianist. (Listen to Walter play in the video below, and watch for Esther in the audience at the 50 second mark.) I gave her a set of stationary cards printed with nature photographs taken by my husband, Jonathan, and a CD recording of my own Book of Life podcast. We took the bus together across Manhattan, and she made sure I had a transfer ticket before she got off at her stop.
Esther was the most gracious lady, one of those shining souls who makes the people around them feel good. I'll follow her lead from A Picture of Grandmother (and really from all of her writing) and say, not how much I'll miss her, but how glad I am to have known her.
A Picture of Grandmother by Esther Hautzig, illustrated by Beth Peck, Farrar Straus & Giroux 2002 (review by Heidi Estrin from Amazon.com, originally appeared in AJL Newsletter)
The Association of Jewish Libraries awarded this book a Sydney Taylor Book Award silver medal, and it truly deserves recognition. It's a quiet gem. At face value, it's about the value of truth, the importance of forgiveness, and the joy of family bonding. The language is simple yet elegant, formal in a European way that adds flavor to the Vilna setting. Young readers will be drawn in by the mystery that baffles Sara and the honesty of the emotions portrayed will resonate with them. On another level, the story is a remarkable tribute to the author's pre-war childhood. As anyone who has read Hautzig's The Endless Steppe knows, most of her family perished in the Holocaust; she survived with her parents and grandmother only because they were exiled to Siberia as capitalists. In this book she brings her belvoed Vilna back to life, peoples it with her extended family, and breathes significance back into matters that the Nazis were soon to treat as inconsequential. Rathe rthan describe the disruption of family connections by war, she examines the history of the family and the mending of broken connections. Although it takes place in 1939 the story has nothing to do with war, highlighting the normalcy that was soon to be destroyed and intensifying the poignancy for those who know Hautzig's history. The story is fiction, but it is based on real events in Hautzig's childhood, and many of the characters bear he names of her actual relatives. The facts may be fictional but the feelings are real.
When I posted my interview with Ann Gonzales, I forgot to give you the links for the other authors who had placed bids on a Book of Life interview in the Bridget Zinn Auction. I had mentioned in the podcast that I would give you the links to these other worthy books, so here they are, better late than never.
Jan Godown Annino is the author of Florida's Famous Animals and she contributed to The Book of the Everglades, The Southeast and Piedmont: A Literary Field Guide, Scenic Driving in Florida, Family Fun in Florida, and The Florida Handbook. She has a forthcoming picture book biography (March 2010) called She Sang Promise, about Betty Mae Tiger Jumper, with art by Lisa Desimini.
Dr. Kathleen Reilly Fallon is Co-Founder and Chairwoman of the Heavenly Productions Foundation, whose mission is to help children in distress. She sang on the CD for Heavenly Skies and Lullabies, part of a book-and-CD set which is dedicated to the Babies & Orphans of 9-11-01.
Connie Crosby is a law librarian in Toronto, Canada. She was one of the very interesting people I met this summer at Podcasters Across Borders, a conference by and for podcasters. This is the first of three Podcasters Across Borders episodes you'll be hearing on The Book of Life.
Connie gave a presentation on The ShanachieTour, a library roadtrip around the world. It was very exciting to me, as a fellow podcaster and librarian, to hear Connie talk about the inspirational storytelling of The Shanachies, so I asked her to describe her presentation for us in this brief interview.
Connie is currently working on a professional guide book for Neal-Schuman, Effective Blogging for Libraries. To help her gather information about blogging in the library world, please take her survey.
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Ann talks about her mother's mental illness, her own PTSD, and her writing. Ann put in the winning bid for a Book of Life interview in the Bridget Zinn Auction earlier this year, which raised money to assist librarian/author Bridget Zinn with her cancer treatments.
While Running for My Life is not a book of Jewish content, it's a topic that's pertinent to everyone and I believe that Ann has done a mitzvah by bringing making this subject matter accessible to young readers.Enjoy the audio, and scroll down for a book trailer video of Running for My Life.
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SHOW NOTES: When I first attempted to post this interview, the audio got cut off halfway through. Here, with my apologies, is the full episode. Jacqueline Dembar Greene talks about the Rebecca Rubin character she created for the American Girl series (click here for the books, the dolls, and the accessories, and click here for Rebecca games!), and about her High Holidays picture book The Secret Shofar of Barcelona, illustrated by Doug Chayka.
AUDIO:
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I must apologize and ask for Rosh Hashanah forgiveness from my listeners, and especially beg the pardon of Jacqueline Dembar Greene, because I've just found that the end of our interview was cut off. This happened with another recent interview, so I'll have to check into the technical side of things here at The Book of Life. I'm hoping that the original interview might still be on my digital voice recorder so that I can reconstruct this episode. However, the recorder is at work and I am at home, so I won't be able to let you know until next week.
In the meantime, let me say that The Secret Shofar of Barcelona (which you didn't get to hear about in the interview as it currently stands) is a terrific book and I highly recommend it!
Click the play button on this flash player to listen to the podcast now: Or click MP3 File to start your computer's media player.
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... hosts The Book of Life podcast
... directs the library at Congregation B'nai Israel in Boca Raton
... presides @ South Florida Association of Jewish Libraries
... hangs around with the Sydney Taylor Book Award Committee, the PJ Library book selection committee, and anyone else who has a thing for children's books ...
