Bookishly Jewish

Daf Yomi, the practice of learning a dedicated page of the Talmud every day, is an experience that unifies Jews across the globe. Whether you study alone, in a yeshiva, via podcast or chavruta, you are literally on the same page as thousands of others engaging in the same daily practice. Ilana Kurshan’s memoir, If All The Seas Were Ink, further drives that point home by chronicling Kurshan’s life durning one seven year Daf Yomi cycle. 

As a woman, a group traditionally excluded from learning Talmud but now actively contributing to scholarship in many communities, Kurshan’s experience felt unique to me. She related the Talmud to her own life which resulted in such hilarity as Rabbi themed Shabbat dishes and such poignancy as learning Tractate Gittin – the laws of Jewish divorce- while processing her own divorce. 

No knowledge of Talmud is necessary to understand the book. In fact, I was more confused by the constant literary references than I was by any of the Talmudic quotes. To be fair, that’s just part and parcel of the experience of viewing the Talmud through Kurshan’s eyes. She advocates for each learner bringing their own distinct experiences to the page and her stories make it clear she relates to the world through classic works of literature. I can appreciate that, even if our taste in books differs. (I’m more genre than literary) My fellow writers will also enjoy immediately being able to decipher which literary agency Kurshan worked for even though she never mentions the name. Plus, the Frankfurt book fair booths as metaphor for Sukkot booths was oddly apt.

My favorite anecdote was an argument Kurshan had on a bus with an elderly Jewish woman. Kurshan preferred to stand while placing her groceries on a seat. The elderly woman said this was selfish as the seat should be given to a person and not bags. Kurshan replied that it was given to a person – her- and she was choosing to use it for her bags instead of herself as this made her more comfortable. Immediately, I could see myself arguing both points. Nobody was right, but nobody was wrong. In Talmudic terms, it was a real “Taiku” moment. 

“Taiku,” is the phrase used to denote that an argument is being tabled indefinitely due to an inability to find an equitable solution. Nobody is wrong, but similarly, nobody emerges the victor. Instead, all parties agree to wait until the messiah comes to adjudicate between them. Which may not be so practical on issues of Jewish law, but it certainly comes in handy. Because Talmud is intended to be a back and forth. An argument between esteemed colleagues as they decipher Gods law. Judaism is not a stagnant practice. It demands active participation. Although part of me could not help but wonder if maybe the messiah has been taking so long to show up because they are dreading the enormous list of arguments awaiting them when they arrive. 

That thought is possibly a bit heretical, but it fits the overall tone of the book. Because Kurshan does not shy away from asking tough questions or bringing modernity to the text, going so far as to reconcile with various gender practices of Talmudic times by noting that according to the definition used in the Talmud, she might qualify as a man. 

I was enticed to perhaps pick up a Talmud too and draw my own conclusions. Which is the greatest gift. Daf Yomi is meant to unify through shared experience of Jewish texts. This book definitely fits the bill. 

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E Broderick is a writer and speculative fiction enthusiast. When not writing she enjoys epic games of trivial pursuit and baking. She currently lives in the U.S. but is eagerly awaiting the day a sentient spaceship offers to take her traveling around the galaxy.

I cannot count how many times I have been told, as a writer, to read my work out loud. Listening to the words, tasting their rhythm and cadence, helps identify awkward phrasing, unrealistic dialogue and a whole host of other problems. I’ve never tried it as a reader until I picked up Sacha Lamb’s delightful historical YA fantasy When the Angels Left the Old Country. As soon as the words left my mouth, I understood that this book was written by someone familiar with the unique speech patterns of native Yiddish speakers.

The story follows a Demon and his unlikely chavrusah, an Angel, as they leave their tiny shtetl and set out for America. The demon is out for adventure. The angel wants to track down a missing girl from their village. And although they will never admit it out loud, neither wants to leave the other behind.

As they journey both by steamship and through the perils of Ellis island they join forces with Rose, who finds herself traveling to America alone after her best friend decides not to make the journey at the last minute. Rose is brave, smart, capable and also utterly clueless as to why her friends defection hurts her so deeply. She and the demon make a fantastic team as the poor angel struggles with its own identity as both a servant of God and a being with wants of its own. Chief among those needs are its desire to stay with the demon even if other righteous deeds pull it in differing directions. 

Along the way we meet such various characters as two Dybbuks, an Ibbur and my personal favorite, a Christian demon. There are also human villains, Jewish and not, that must be dealt with. All this in addition to a damsel to rescue, who actually turns out to be be quite competent herself. 

The authenticity of the setting is baked right into the very language the characters use. Readers not familiar with Yiddish, or the distinct English phrases that Yiddish speakers use as a result of translation, might wonder at how the copy editor let this stuff through. I was grateful for every last STET Lamb employed to preserve this effect. Because read aloud, this book about immigration actually feels like coming home.

Note: the reviewer received a free e-copy of this book in exchange for an honest review after requesting it through NetGalley.

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E Broderick is a writer and speculative fiction enthusiast. When not writing she enjoys epic games of trivial pursuit and baking. She currently lives in the U.S. but is eagerly awaiting the day a sentient spaceship offers to take her traveling around the galaxy.

Set on Nantucket, Hannah Reynolds’ Eight Nights of Flirting, is a companion book to her previous novel, The Summer of Lost Letters, which also dealt with family mysteries and Jewish history in Nantucket. I knew absolutely nothing about the Jewish history of Nantucket and was fascinated by how Reynolds wove it into the plot in the first novel, so I was eager to read Eight Nights of Flirting and was confident I’d be in good hands. I listened to the audiobook while I was in my hometown for an early family Thanksgiving, which was also a celebration of my grandmother’s 100th birthday. It was the perfect time to read a Hanukkah romcom about a big Jewish family coming together for the holidays to celebrate milestones and heal old wounds.

Shira Barbanel has always sucked at flirting, but she’s got a target in her great-uncle’s assistant Isaac, who’s coming to her family home in Nantucket for the holidays. That gives Shira the motivation and the urgency – desperation, really – to ask for flirting lessons from the unlikeliest of candidates: her first big crush, Tyler, when they have an unplanned and unchaperoned sleepover due to inclement weather. Tyler, in exchange, wants an introduction to Shira’s great-uncle for internship purposes. Of course, Shira and Tyler find more than they bargained for when their flirting lessons bring them closer, and Shira must decide what and who she really wants. Shira’s dilemma is underlined by her discovery of a mysterious potential doomed love affair in the Barbanel family history, and her grandparents’ strained marriage (for more on that, you’ll need to read The Summer of Lost Letters).

It was viscerally painful to listen to Shira describe her confession of love to Tyler when she was fourteen and he was sixteen, but it made the burgeoning romance between Shira and Tyler that much more earned when they did get there. Shira’s awkwardness coming off as standoffish was deeply relatable, and I enjoyed how their relationship developed as they got to know each other better. I love a story about a crush going from projection of an unattainable ideal to a real, flawed person that you like in all their imperfections, and Reynolds did a good job of showing how Shira and Tyler both let down their guard and truly got to know each other throughout the course of the story.

This was an interfaith romance that didn’t belabor the issue, perhaps because the characters are young – Tyler is a freshman in college and Shira is still in high school (I didn’t love that, tbh, but I get it – for Shira to be too young for him when she has her big crush makes total sense. Also, Isaac was 19, and maybe I am old and square, but should these college boys be making out with high school girls?!? Why couldn’t both boys be 18-year-old HS seniors? But even with that quibble, I was invested in Shira’s romantic evolution). The challenge presented by interfaith marriage is touched upon more through the historical mystery aspects of the story, but it never gets heavy-handed. It also sets up the conflict of going after what you think you “should” want/what is expected of you vs. going with your heart, though that is not limited to the characters’ religions, but also their career and college goals and who they want to be in the world. Tyler not being Jewish makes a convenient entry point for readers who are unfamiliar with Jewish practices, since it sets Shira up to explain what may be unclear to a non-Jewish reader, making the story accessible to a wider audience.

This is a very sweet book to be snowed in with. I was invested in Shira and Tyler’s romance, as well as the family mystery. I loved Shira’s boisterous family and the emphasis on Hanukkah over Christmas. And I will definitely read whatever Hannah Reynolds writes next.

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Melissa Baumgart is the 2018 winner of the Katherine Paterson Prize from Hunger Mountain Journal for the Arts for her young adult short story, “Don’t Quote Me.” (https://hungermtn.org/dont-quote-me/) She has written about film for Bright Wall/Dark Room, We Are the Mutants, and Crooked Marquee. Melissa has an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts

One Night, Markovitch by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen is the story of two arranged marriages of convenience, of Israeli men during World War II marrying European women to save them from the horrors of Nazi-Occupied Europe.

The main character, Yaakov Markovitch, is completely unremarkable. When he returns to Israel and finds himself married to the beautiful Bella Zeigerman, he becomes obsessed with her, and vows that he will make her love him. He refuses to grant her a divorce, and the emotional turmoil he causes her is made worse by the reality of history–of tragedy, war, secrets, and loss.

I keep a copy of this book near my desk at all times.

Not because the story is brilliant (it absolutely is) or the cover is beautiful (it truly is), but because reading Gundar-Goshen’s work gives me creative freedom. Her voice is distinct, her view on the world unapologetic and uncompromising.

Jami Attenberg wrote in her newsletter recently that she likes to start her writing day with reading. She reads a book from someone she admires, or that relates to what she’s writing. I loved that advice. What better way to enter through the gates of storytelling than with another well crafted book?

I’ve started to do the same thing (it at least gives me a few extra minutes to be cozy in bed before I get to my desk). I’ve tried different books, but one book I always come back to is One Night, Markovitch. If I want to access the best version of my writing voice, I read a passage from her book, and it’s like a key that unlocks my best writing persona.

There is something about the way Ayelet Gundar-Goshen can puppeteer a cast of complex characters that I have admired since the first time I picked up the paperback of One Night, Markovitch.

Perhaps it is her psychology background, but Gundar-Goshen’s characters take actions that are absolutely repulsive to an outsider view. Yet, when she writes from their perspective, it is easy to empathize with a person that, had you had read about them in the news, you would have thrown the paper across the room in anger, calling them the absolute scum of the earth.

I love One Night, Markovitch because it’s the kind of book that reminds me why I write. It sweeps me away in an adventure, with characters I still think about that seem real and multilayered. The voice is funny but not so funny as to make it distracting, and the world is real and layered. Reality mixes with whiffs of magic in ways that are not distracting, but completely appealing to my magical-realism obsessed tastes, and like all her other books, the moral questions brought up are thought provoking and conversation inducing. This is a book worth the read–and in, my case, the reread.

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We’re pretty big fans of Stacey Agdern here at BookishlyJewish, so we were delighted to be asked to host the cover reveal for her upcoming novel, the first book in the Last Girls Standing series! The B’nai Mitzvah Mistake release from Tule publishing on June 1, 2023.

Sharing isn’t caring when it comes to your big day.

Judith Nachman loves working as a project manager at the Mitzvah Alliance charity, and after five years, it’s finally her turn to have the bat mitzvah of her dreams. Judith is enjoying every single moment of the process—until she learns she has to share her day with the annoying hockey player who derailed her sister’s career.

Retired hockey player Ash Mendel is determined to start an organization to support Jewish athletes, and the first step is to have his bar mitzvah. He’s not sure what he wants his day to look like, but he knows he definitely wants forgiveness from Judith, the woman he’s sharing the date with.

But Judith’s nephew needs to interview an athlete, and Ash needs professional advice for his foundation, so they exchange favors. Except as they get to know each other and their worlds start to mingle, Ash and Judith will have to decide whether sharing their lives as well as their B’Nai Mitzvah is the best decision they could make, or the biggest mistake of their lives.

Here is the cover, featuring artwork from ebooklaunch.

BUY IT: Amazon | B & N | Kobo | Apple Books | Amazon UK SHELF IT: Goodreads

Growing up often comes hand in hand with selective memory. It’s a basic human adaptation necessary for survival. If we remembered the pain of childbirth, nobody would ever have a second kid. If we couldn’t forget that time we tripped and fell, we’d never get up and try walking again. And, as evidenced in M. Evan Wolkenstein’s middle grade contemporary novel, Turtle Boy, if we remembered Middle School in all its glory, we might never be able to force our own children to attend despite their vehement protestations. 

Will, the star of the book, suffers from micrognathia, or small jaw. For some people it rarely causes any issues, but for Will, it has lead to difficulty eating and snoring that could potentially worsen as he gets older. There is even the lurking suspicion that it might have contributed to his father’s unexplained death during a surgery. All of which has lead Will to have an extreme fear of hospitals. Which is definitely a problem, since he’s scheduled to have corrective surgery right after his bar mitzvah. 

Due to his low self esteem and a host of other complex emotional issues, Will hides himself behind hoodies, glasses and books. This earns him the moniker Turtle Boy, which further exacerbates his desire to retreat from the world. In fact, the only place he feels comfortable, is in the wildlife preserve behind his school.

Out on the preserve, Will catches and domesticates wild turtles, even though he knows it is wrong to remove these creatures from the wild. When news spreads that the preserve is being sold to developers, he feels like his only place of refuge is being ripped away. 

Will’s withdrawl from society has lead to other complications beside an unfortunate nickname. A rift forms between his few remaining friends due to his inability to communicate what is bothering him and to understand that other people have their own problems. Plus, he has chickened out of every opportunity to complete the community service hours required for his bar mitzvah. Enter Rabbi Harris, the hippie-yet-oddly-wise, Hebrew school teacher. He pairs Will up with RJ, a non Jewish teen with a terminal mitochondrial disorder that has left him confined to the hospital.

The relationship is pretty rocky at first, but pretty soon Will finds himself emerging from his own shell to fulfill RJs requests. Along the way, he learns a lot about himself, how to be a true friends and maybe even help the nature preserve.

I’m not going to lie, this book had me tearing up. Although it is obvious from the beginning that RJ is extremely I’ll, watching this all play out through Will’s eyes, hit me like a freight train. I also got very misty eyed over Will’s progress towards a nuanced understanding what it means to tease and be teased, how to stand up for a friend, and how to protect the turtles he so loves. 

There are a host of secondary characters that are handled with both extreme gentleness and a vibrant sense of humor. From the acerbic girl who works at the pet shop to the nurse that Will keeps giving the side eye, everybody is allowed to fully develop as a character. Nobody is black and white. And nobody finds a magical, or even medical, solution to their emotional problems or broken self image. It takes hard work and this book does not shy away from that.

Will learns that surgery will not correct the way he sees himself, nor will it change how others view him. Most of all, he learns that letting go doesn’t mean forgetting. It simply allows you to keep on living so that you can keep on remembering- in a way that selects the good over the bad. 

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E Broderick is a writer and speculative fiction enthusiast. When not writing she enjoys epic games of trivial pursuit and baking. She currently lives in the U.S. but is eagerly awaiting the day a sentient spaceship offers to take her traveling around the galaxy.

Nobody writes stubborn, smart, fiercely loyal, middle grade Jewish girls better than Sofiya Pasternak. Seriously. I dare you to find me a better example of a girl fighting against all odds for what she believes in than Ziva, protagonist of the historical MG novel Black Bird, Blue Road. 

Ziva is facing some pretty tremendous obstacles. Her brother, Pessah, is dying from leprosy. Although it is now curable, in the times of the Khazar empire, leprosy was a death sentence and lepers were sent away to live and die in isolated colonies to prevent them from spreading their disease to others. Ziva is determined to save Pessah from such a fate. Especially when she learns that Pessah has had a vision of the Malach Hamavet, the angel of death, that has come to claim him.

She is also an aspiring judge, a position largely reserved for men in the Khazar empire. While Ziva’s entire family has pretty much given up on both of these fronts, resigning themselves to sending Pessah to a leper colony and attempting to arrange a good match for Ziva, Ziva is undeterred. She is not going to watch her brother die and she is certainly not going to attend parties, wearing ridiculous Byzantine dresses, searching for her one true match so that she can settle down and give up her dreams. 

So what’s a girl in an ancient kingdom, best known for its starring role in Yehuda Halevi’s philosophical work “Kuzari“, to do? For Ziva the answer is team up with a Sheid to try and find a city where death literally cannot enter. Obviously. 

Ziva makes some pretty awful choices along the way, she’s only twelve after all, and she also learns a lot about her own internal prejudices. Most of all, she learns that there are no magical cures for the things that ail us both physically and spiritually, a lesson that is often overlooked in books featuring characters with disabilities. 

Ziva’s story is full of Jewish lore and legend but also the hustle and bustle of a kingdom long forgotten where Jews would graze their herds in the steppes and identify themselves based on the location of their origin. Readers will be pulled in by Ziva’s singular determination, but they will remain for the wonderfully researched traditions and folklore.

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E Broderick is a writer and speculative fiction enthusiast. When not writing she enjoys epic games of trivial pursuit and baking. She currently lives in the U.S. but is eagerly awaiting the day a sentient spaceship offers to take her traveling around the galaxy.

Monstrosity has long been used by mainstream society to demonize, ostracize or raise fear towards anything viewed as “other”. However, there has recently been a rising awareness of monstrosity and “otherness” as a source of power and strength. In Aden Polydoros’s YA, second world fantasy, Bone Weaver, we are greeted with monstrosity in many different forms and often the lines of good and bad do not fall where society would have you believe they do.

From the very first page we are greeted with a scene that many of us would find horrific, only to learn it is in fact one of cozy domesticity. The main character, Toma, was rescued as a child by Upyr’s – bodies that have arisen from the dead and usually gorge themselves on living flesh. Toma’s parents have learned to control their hunger for human flesh and are raising an upyr child – Toma’s sister Galina. This isolated little family is turned upside down when Galina is kidnapped by monster hunters looking to bring their prize to the leader of an uprising. From the uprising’s point of view, a monster is being taken for experimentation and culling but from Toma’s vantage point a sweet loving child is about to be horrifically tortured.

As Toma sets off towards the big city to rescue Galina she joins forces with the recently dethroned Tsar, Mikhail, whose magic has been stolen by the leader of the uprising. Rounding out the not-so-merry trio is Vanya, who has been branded as a witch and a murderer after using his hidden magic to save his people from slaughter by the ruling class. Vanya is part of an ethnic minority known as the Strannik who have long been used as scape goats by the ruling class and are victimized on the regular when inept leaders need something to distract the populace with. Any magic possessed by a Strannik like Vanya is deemed unclean witchcraft as opposed to the heroic powers of the ruling class and Tsar despite there not being much difference between them that readers can distinguish other than their parentage.

In this the reader will easily find a parable to Judaism and the history of Jewish persecution as well as a view inside true monstrosity that is often presented as heroism – the persecution of minorities by people in power who are then deem themselves heroes for killing the “unclean” and “infidel” among us. Vanya represents a bucking of that system. A question that begs to be answered – why is his magic any more unclean than Mikhail’s simply because his parents were not the elite ruling class? When children are run down in the streets by the purported heroes and keepers of the peace simply because they are different and therefore present a convenient way to diffuse rising political tensions, how can anyone tell monster from hero anymore?

As the trio journeys together, Mikhail is repeatedly exposed to the injustice and hypocrisy that has taken place under his rule and often in his name. Toma discovers more about her past and the Strannik while Vanya staunchly refuses to be seen as anything less than what he is – a person with magic, same as anyone else, not an unclean witch or a hero. Because those are titles that aught to be earned rather than inherited.

The setting of this secondary world that is populated by creatures from Eastern European and Slavic folklore In this too, readers are forced to reexamine our preconceptions as the creatures show compassion and understanding when it is offered to them – usually by Toma who approaches them without the prejudices that Mikhail and Vanya have grown up with. The ending felt overly optimistic to me – can one enlightened Tsar change centuries of baked-in prejudice? – but I am hopeful that it is the set up for a sequel in which we get to watch this change happen in real time. Because winning a war is easy compared to dealing with the ensuing aftermath and moral grayness across party lines.I would love to see how these characters take on that challenge.

Note: Bookishlyjewish received a free e-arc, no strings attached, despite initially being turned down by the publisher on NetGalley. No hard feelings, those arc review sites usually run on metrics we never meet and everyone has always been very kind when we get the guts to ask in person.

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E Broderick is a writer and speculative fiction enthusiast. When not writing she enjoys epic games of trivial pursuit and baking. She currently lives in the U.S. but is eagerly awaiting the day a sentient spaceship offers to take her traveling around the galaxy.

Many Diaspora Jews debate about whether or not to return to the lands from which their ancestors fled or were banished. For those that do return, often their trips constitute a “grave tour” because cemeteries are the only thing left of once vibrant Jewish communities. R.M. Romero’s YA novel-in-verse, The Ghosts of Rose Hill, has an interesting twist on this narrative. The protagonist, Ilana, is sent by her parents to spend the summer in Prague with her paternal Aunt in the hopes that she will focus on her studies and give up her desire to to be a violinist. Instead, she finds herself enmeshed with ghosts, an antisemitic water spirit and the very first love of her life.

Ilana’s Aunt lives on the base of a hill that contains a much neglected Jewish cemetery. Since Ilana is Jewish and her Aunt is not, Ilana is allowed to undertake restorations despite her Aunt’s reservations about ghosts. While caring for the gravestones, Ilana does indeed encounter a ghost – a young Jewish boy named Benjamin. However, Benjamin isn’t the only denizen of the spirit world interested in Ilana. A mysterious man with no shadow gifts her a violin so that she can play, despite her parents wishes.

Benjamin and Ilana fall for each other as only two teens experiencing first love and first heartache can. As Ilana discovers more and more about Benjamin’s past and the man with no shadow, she is thrust into the middle of a nightmare that has haunted the Jewish children of Prague for centuries.

The story read to me like a fairy tale retelling and verse was the perfect format for a story so dependent on music. Each sentence conveys far more meaning than the simple summation of its words. Ilana is a compelling heroine and the story is all the more poignant for knowing that Benjamin was already dead before Ilana met him. It is a tale of growing up and facing harsh realities while still clinging to the innocence of youth and the spark within us all that leads us to create art.

Ilana is a biracial jew and the story of her mother’s family heritage was particularly compelling. The verse in those sections took on a distinct quality, much as Jews from different parts of the world have distinct customs. Yet some customs unify us all – including the importance of caring for the dead. Referred to as Chesed shel Emet it is believed to be the only truly selfless good deed one can ever do in this world. Ilana takes that truth, and the many truths about herself that she discovers along the way, into her battle for Benjamin’s soul. Readers will be swept away on that journey with her.

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E Broderick is a writer and speculative fiction enthusiast. When not writing she enjoys epic games of trivial pursuit and baking. She currently lives in the U.S. but is eagerly awaiting the day a sentient spaceship offers to take her traveling around the galaxy.

While we do not usually gravitate towards Holocaust narratives, when we heard about Danica Davidson and Eva Mozes Kor we could not pass up the opportunity to interview Danica. Unfortunately, Eva passed away before the release of their joint book, I Will Protect You, and therefore could not be interviewed. This made the book that tells her story all the more precious. We were impressed to see Danica working to make Eva’s dream a reality. Below are some of the highlights from our conversation.

BookishlyJewish: How did you meet Eva Kor and get involved in this project?
Danica: Eva gave a speech at a college about an hour from where I live. I had learned about it through my temple newsletter, and I had never met someone who’d survived Auschwitz as a child. I was also reading a lot of Jewish-themed books and seeing Jewish speakers because I’d recently experienced antisemitism while working as a journalist and was trying to do something about it. So I was hoping I could interview Eva for a magazine.

I introduced myself to her after her speech and mentioned I’d written and published sixteen kids’ books. I was just trying to let her know I was a professional author and not wasting her time. But her whole expression changed as soon as I said that. She exclaimed that she wanted to write a kids’ book, because she said you need to reach kids about the Holocaust and antisemitism before 12 for it to do any good. Holocaust education in America usually starts at 12 or older (or not at all) and Eva said it’s not working because the prejudices are already set in there. We started talking about how we could do a kids’ book together.

BookishlyJewish: What was it like working together? Any special memories you would like to share?
Danica: It started with me interviewing her. I also read and sampled kids’ books that dealt with the Holocaust and other difficult subjects to see how they accomplished it. Then I’d bat ideas off Eva. After I had a good sense of her story and what she wanted, I started writing it and sending her chapters one at a time. The rough draft spilled out in a fever dream in three weeks. Eva was ecstatic.

One thing that might surprise people is that Eva had a great sense of humor and could be really colorful in how she talked. She described moving to America as being like moving to the moon. She also was full of energy and never seemed to stop working, even when she was tired. She would get up at the crack of dawn (or something like that) and be right to work. Sometimes she would call me in the evenings to discuss the chapters I’d sent her, but I’d already be tired for the day and want to talk about it the next day when I was refreshed. But she would still be ready to work.

Eva and I got really close when we worked together. It broke my heart when she died unexpectedly just fifteen days after we accepted Little, Brown’s offer on the completed manuscript. She knew our book would be published, but I wish she were here to see it.

BookishlyJewish: This is obviously a difficult topic. How did you and Eva decide on an approach for younger readers?
Danica: Eva knew she wanted to reach kids, but she wasn’t sure how to go about it. That’s why she hadn’t written a children’s book on her own. She was really good at visiting elementary schools and talking to kids, but writing is different.

The biggest thing that makes this work as a kid’s book is the fact she was a kid herself when she survived Auschwitz. So it’s written from a child’s point-of-view, and I’m used to writing in kids’ voices.

I told her I thought the book would be the best for kids if it read like a novel, had short chapters, kept a fast pace, explained some of the bigger picture stuff. She agreed and agreed. Most of my ideas she liked.

When I was in elementary school, my dad taught me about the Holocaust, and then I would go to school and tell the other kids. So I guess that’s how I got my start as a Holocaust educator. But what’s really helpful is that I remember how my dad explained it to me so that I would understand. I used those memories to get the right tone for this. There isn’t anything in this book (besides what happened to Eva) that I didn’t know about in elementary school, either from my dad or from books I read.

BookishlyJewish: Who is the ideal audience for this book? What do you hope they take away from reading it?
Danica: The book is middle grade and aimed for ages eight through twelve. It can be read by older people, too, and I hear from adults who read it and say they learned a lot. Parents might want to read it with their kids, especially if it’s the kid’s introduction to the Holocaust.

There is so much ignorance out there about the Holocaust, from people not knowing what Auschwitz is to people comparing anything they don’t like to Hitler, so this book aims to teach people what the Holocaust actually was. It also goes into the history of antisemitism, so people will not only have a better understanding of how we got to the Holocaust, but also be able to recognize antisemitism as it manifests today. I hope readers will check out more Holocaust books, because no one book can capture such a huge subject.

I also hope it helps young people better recognize extremism and propaganda in whatever forms they take.

BookishlyJewish: What has been the audience’s response to the book?
Danica: Well, besides the handful of people trying to ban it, censor it and get it cancelled in our current system of attacking kids’ books, the response has been really positive. I hear from parents who say they’re reading it to their kids and the kids are completely engrossed. I hear from people who say, “They don’t teach this in schools!” I’ve even heard people say this book has changed their lives.

BookishlyJewish: Do you have any particular favorite Jewish author or book?
Danica: That’s really difficult to pick! But since it’s on topic, David A. Adler and Sonia Levitin were two writers who had a big impact on me in elementary school with their Holocaust books. Adler’s We Remember the Holocaust was a book I got from the Scholastic Book Fair at my school, and it respectfully and honestly tells kids about what happened in the Holocaust as a whole. It meant a lot to me that he endorsed Eva’s and my book.

Levitin’s book Journey to America is fiction, but it’s inspired her family escaping Nazi Germany. It was narrated by a girl like me and pulled me into her world.

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Bio: Danica Davidson is the author of almost twenty books for middle grade and young adult readers, ranging from serious nonfiction to Minecrafter adventure novels to manga how-to-draw books. Please visit her website at www.danicadavidson.com for more information on her books, writing advice for kids, lesson plans and more.