Welcome to the February 2022 Jewish Book Carnival. I hope you have a chance to check out these interesting links.

The Jewish Book Carnival is a monthly roundup of Jewish literary links from across the blogosphere. Sponsored by the Association of Jewish Libraries, it is hosted by a different blog each month and shares book reviews, author interviews, essays, and other blog posts about Jewish books. Visit the Jewish Book Carnival HQ for the upcoming schedule, past Carnivals, and to learn how to participate!

• The Association of Jewish Libraries was pleased to announce the winners of the 2022 Sydney Taylor Book Award for the best Jewish literature for children and teens! 

• Enjoy interviews with the winning authors and illustrators at the Sydney Taylor Book Award Blog Tour! 

• On The Book of Life podcast, listen to an interview with Susan Kusel and Sean Rubin (author and illustrator of The Passover Guest), Veera Hiranandani (author of How to Find What You’re Not Looking For) and Aden Polydoros (author of The City Beautiful), the four Sydney Taylor Book Award gold medalists. 

• The Sydney Taylor Shmooze mock award blog starts up a new year of Jewish book reviews with this evaluation of picture book The Chocolate King by Michael Leventhal. 

• Each week, Erika Dreifus’s My Machberet blog curates links from the world of Jewish books and writing. Here’s one recent example.

• At Life Is Like a Library, we eat chocolate on days that end in “y,” and especially enjoyed The Chocolate King (Green Bean Books, 2022).

• April Halprin Wayland shares a personal experience as well as information about her upcoming book here.

• A Jewish Grandmother is wondering if there’s a name for the genre of the two books she recently reviewed, both autobiographies, or maybe more like memoirs by people whose lives were greatly improved in all sorts of ways, even medically, once they became Torah observant Jews. Both today live in Israel and are happily married, which is not the lifestyle they were raised in. In other ways their backgrounds were very different. Miranda Portnoy, a pen name, was raised in a dysfunctional abusive home, while Tzvi Fishman’s parents were loving and supportive, even though they couldn’t quite grasp his decision to leave his successful life and career in Hollywood for a Torah observant life in Jerusalem. Making Meaning Out of Madness: A Jewish Journey, Book Review and From Hollywood To The Holy Land: A Spiritual Odyssey, Book Review.

• On her blog, Book Q&As with Deborah Kalb, Deborah interviewed Ruth Behar about her new picture book, Tía Fortuna’s New Home.

• Ann Kofsky provides some helpful insights for grandparents reading to their grandkids here.

• Gila Green is thrilled to have Rabbi Amy Grossblatt Pessah visit gilagreenwrites and offer some deep and meaningful reflections on the practice and art of writing.

Thank you to all the participants. See you next month!

Tagged AJL, Association of Jewish Libraries, Jewish Book Carnival