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Showing posts from December, 2014

New book announcement: Meet the Avot! (Biblical rhymes for family times.)

I couldn’t decide what to call this book.  Avos?  Avot?  We live in Israel, but I am proudly Ashkenazi.  In my head I say Shabbos, Shavuos and Avos, but everybody around me says Shabbat, Shavuot and Avot.  I also still call our Chanukah candle-holder a menorah, resisting the “Chanukiyah” pull with all my strength. I went with Avot anyway, just as I have in most of my recent books.  There’s just too many of “them” out there… and when I say them, I mean also my own children, who are learning in Israeli schools.  The Family Torah is all-Ashkenazi, all the time.  But everything else is Sefardi, pronunciation-wise.  Including this book. It’s short but sweet:  a collection of children's rhymes (with illustrations) to introduce the Avos/Avot :  Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov, Yosef, plus Noach, Moshe, Shimshon and David. (Click on the cover or click here to see it on Amazon.) It’s based on poems and ideas I came up with while homeschooling -- but never had a chance before to edit and &

12 nights of Chanukah fun: a mega Jewish holiday picture book roundup

Usually, I write reviews of Jewish books – for kids and adults – here on this blog (Adventures in MamaLand).  But I also have a blog called Write Kids’ Books , specifically for children’s book writers.  Sometimes, there’s some crossover and I’m not sure where to post something. When I took a children’s picture-book writing course earlier this year, I had to research “comps” – comparable books on a similar topic.  Since I was writing a Chanukah book, I decided to research what else was out there in the world of Chanukah books.  I chose these books almost at random, but I think it’s a good assortment of what’s out there. Over on my writing blog, I’ve shared a short analysis of each of these books.  How Do Dinosaurs Say Happy Chanukah? by Jane Yolen, illustrated by Mark Teague Mrs. Greenberg's Messy Hanukkah, by Linda Glasser, illustrated by Nancy Cote Esther’s Hanukkah Disaster, by Jane Sutton, illustrated by Andy Rowland Chanukah Lights, by Michael J. Rosen, illustrated by

A new kind of science book – written for Jewish kids

Let’s face it.  There are more of them than there are of us. I’m talking about Christians. Lots of them in the world.  And not so many of us. When we were homeschooling, I envied Christian homeschoolers the wealth of educational kkresources they had that integrated their faith with every subject imaginable:  from literature to math, from history to science.  So much so that we tried out a few programs, like Apologia Science .  I liked them to some extent, and the faith part was great, but we kept running up against bits of the program that we couldn’t use:  the Christian parts. I particularly loved the idea of integrating faith and science.  That’s why I decided to create a new series of science ebooks written specifically for kids growing up with a Jewish worldview. Have you ever wanted to hand your kids a science book knowing they’ll get more out of it than just the bare facts? Have you wished they could learn about science through the wonder of faith – without encountering