Latest / Mom Wars / Turning Kids into Readers with Ann Koffsky

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Turning Kids into Readers with Ann Koffsky · Mom Wars

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: From the front lines of the mom wars, here's Bethany
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Mandel and Cara Kennedy.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to another episode of Your Favorite Podcast.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: I am your host, Bethany Mandel, and I am joined
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: today by one of my children's favorite authors. Really. Ann
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Kofsky is an author and illustrator of more than 50
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Jewish books for children. And we met for lunch, I
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: don't know, a couple weeks ago. And then I was
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: at Ellis Island with my children and my daughter picked
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: out a book and she was obsessed with it. And
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: actually it almost made her throw up on the boat
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: because she was reading on the boat.
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: I'm sorry.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: And yes, and I was, I was arguing with her
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: about stop. And this is like, it was such a
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: weird thing because I was like, stop reading. You're making
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: yourself more seasick. And she's like, I'm not reading. And
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: the book is in front of her and it's open
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: in her face. And so I'm arguing with her over
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: and over and over. And then I was like, I
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: noticed on one of the pages that I saw something Jewish.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: And I said, who wrote this book? What is this book?
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: Because I just kind of picked it out of the
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: gift shop because she asked me for it. And then
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: I was like, I had lunch with that woman like
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: a week ago.
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  Speaker 3: I know. And it was so, so nice that you
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: sent it to me. Yeah. I was like, this is
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: the best text. What was it called? It was called
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: What Emma Wrote. And it's all about Emma Lazarus and
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: how she came to write the poem on the Statue
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: of Liberty. But really, it's about how Emma Lazarus was
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: so much more than that, because she was, that was
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: just like something she wrote, but she wrote many, many,
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: many other things. And she was a huge advocate for
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: Jewish people and for Jewish immigrants in New York. And
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: she fought anti-Semitism and she did all the things. And it's,
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: I mean, she's so cool. Also, your kid is so cool.
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: Because I was in that gift shop. I did a
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: signing there. And there's a lot of toys. And your
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: kid picked up a book. So you are doing something right.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: If we're just being honest, I told her yes to
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: any book, but no to anything else. Okay, so this
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: is good parenting.
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: I'm a good mommying, as we say.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: I always say, and it's reflected in what my house
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: looks like, that there is no budget for books.
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: Well, I can see that behind you. We're on Zoom,
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: and I can see quite a number of them, and
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: I'm sure there are many, many, many more.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: I once took a picture of our home library and
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: put it into ChatGPT, and I said, estimate how many books,
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: and it was thousands. Wow. Because we have so.
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: Many children's books. Clearly not enough. Go buy some more.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: We have a lot of children's books.
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: Yay!
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: But anyway, it was funny because I bought this for her,
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: and then we spent the whole boat ride with me
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: yelling at her to stop reading the book that I
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: just bought her.
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: It's like when I do a signing and I'm like
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: writing in the book, because I'm supposed to, because I'm
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: supposed to sign it as an author. And I'm like,
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: I'm defacing a book. How could I do this? This
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: is wrong.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: You're also setting a bad example for children because you're like,
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: don't do what I'm doing right now. Don't write in
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: this book. I'm allowed to, but you're not.
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: So you're telling her to stop reading. I'm defacing books.
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: But sometimes these things are the right choices.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: So, and... She was already a fan of yours. Not
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: that she like put two and two together at all.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: But she is my little redhead. And she also loves
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: all of your Kayla books. And so I thought that
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: this would be a good time of the year to
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: have you on because we are. So this episode is
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: releasing the day before the Jewish New Year starts. It
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: starts tomorrow night. for folks who are listening on launch day.
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: How did this happen? How are we already here again?
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: I know, I know. And so I thought it would
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: be nice to have a Jewish children's book author on
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: the show to talk all things children's literature and the
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: holidays and all these things, because people don't necessarily realize
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: that in December, I'm not stressed out. That's not my
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: stress zone.
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: November. November.
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  Speaker 2: Also, not my stress.
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  Speaker 3: Hanukkah is no big deal.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: No big deal. So everyone always asks me in December,
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  Speaker 2: are you so like, are you overwhelmed? I'm like, no,
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: I just had all my holidays. I had all my overwhelm.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: And so that is where I am right now. I
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: am in overwhelmed territory.
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a lot of meals. There's a lot to eat.
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  Speaker 3: There's a lot to do. There's a lot of praying.
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  Speaker 3: There's a lot of communal responsibilities and family responsibilities. And
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: at the same time, we're supposed to be happy. So
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: that is a challenge.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: I truthfully, I love these holidays. I hate Passover with
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: every fiber of my being. But all of these fall holidays,
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: it's like magic upon magic. starving day, but then more magic.
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  Speaker 3: That's beautiful.
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  Speaker 2: I love it.
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  Speaker 3: I'm trying to think what my, do I think they're magic?
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  Speaker 3: I think they're hard. I think every Jewish holiday has
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: its own challenge. Like Passover has the challenge of all
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: that food and the satyrs. And the cleaning. Oh my God,
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: the cleaning and the whatever, the matzah. And then You know,
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: these holidays come around and you got to build a
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: hut for the holiday of Sukkot. And then you got
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: to serve outside. And then you get to eat soup.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: Like, I always joke that Jewish holidays are, my life
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: is the Truman Show. That's why we named our dog
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: Truman in part, because my life is a Truman Show.
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  Speaker 2: And Sukkot is the ultimate made up holiday. There is
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: no way that you're supposed to build a hut and
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: go in your backyard in the hut That has no
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: roof or any solid structure at all. And then you
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: go outside. And, guys, for those of you who are
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: not Jewish, I'm not making this up. You build a
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: temporary hut in your backyard. And then you bring out
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: this giant leaf thing with a $ 100 lemon.
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: Citron. It's a citron.
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: It's like a lemon, but it's filled with chemicals.
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  Speaker 3: And it's very expensive.
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  Speaker 2: It's a $ 100 lemon that you can't eat.
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  Speaker 3: Except the day after Sukkot, it's back to $ 1. Right, right.
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  Speaker 2: So then you shake it around in your hut.
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  Speaker 3: You do the hokey pokey.
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  Speaker 2: So it's a totally made-up holiday, but there is something
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: so magic.
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  Speaker 3: Wait a second. Bethany, all holidays are made up at
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: some point. What do you mean it's a made-up holiday?
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: This is particularly made up.
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  Speaker 3: Why is it any more made up than Hanukkah?
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  Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know. Hanukkah, just like the oil less.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: It makes sense to me in a way that, so
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: I think you know what it is. And this actually
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: brings me to our conversation. I didn't grow up with Sukkot.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: I grew up reform. And so I grew up with Hanukkah.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: I grew up with Passover. All of those holidays feel
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: normal to me. When someone first described Hanukkah, Sukkot to me,
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: I thought that I was being punked. And I still
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: think I'm being punked.
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: So does Shavuot do the same heebie-jeebies to you? Because
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: that's also not a hugely popular one.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: No, but it's also low-key made up. I'm like, oh,
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: we eat cheesecake? Okay, sure, Jan.
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I never really figured out. Every time I try
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: to find out what the reason for eating dairy on
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: Shavuot is, it's like there's so many answers that there's
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: no answer. There's like 15 at 20 acres.
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  Speaker 2: But anyway, there's something so magical about sitting in your ridiculous.
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  Speaker 3: $ 1, 300 temporary hut.
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: And you're eating soup out there. You have to eat
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: soup out there. It's very hard. You have to like
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: bring the pot out there. But you're eating soup in
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: the fall outside. And we can hear because all of
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: our neighbors are Jewish. We can hear everyone in their backyards.
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: It's very, very communal. And singing. It's beautiful.
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  Speaker 2: It's so beautiful. And I get teary in my sukkah
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  Speaker 2: every single year.
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  Speaker 3: Oh, that's so sweet.
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  Speaker 2: When I'm eating soup and I'm sitting with my family,
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  Speaker 2: I'm like, I love fall. I love soup. I love
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  Speaker 2: the communal of it because it's like I can hear everyone,
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: but I don't know.
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: I also love like the week before. I'm also in
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: a very Jewish populated neighborhood. And if I'm like going
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: for a bike ride on the right day, I hear clang. King,
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: because everybody is building their Sukkot and you hear all
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: the metal aluminum poles falling to the floor and crashing.
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: And then you hear people say, no, it goes over there.
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  Speaker 3: Remember there.
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  Speaker 2: I love that you can also like very clearly identify
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: who is Jewish that time of year. I think it's
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: really fun. And so my kids are always surprised by
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: how many of our neighbors are Jewish. I'm like, guys,
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: we paid a like not insignificant amount of money extra
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: to live in this neighborhood because it's Jewish, because on
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: the Sabbath, for those who don't know on the Sabbath,
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: you're supposed to walk to synagogue. And so it becomes
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: that like.
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: Limits, it creates a sphere because you really don't want
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: to have to walk five miles to synagogue. You'd rather
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: walk a quarter of a mile. So, yeah.
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: So the homes nearer to the synagogue are at a
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: premium and we're not rich. So we're like, you know,
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: half a mile away.
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: Right. It's a very specific real estate bubble. Yes, yes.
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  Speaker 2: And so I just, I think it's very cool and
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: special to see how many people are Jewish. But I
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: get the question.
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: And it's outdoors, like all the other, you know, by definition,
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: it's outdoors. So it's very public. You're saying, here I am,
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: and here's my butt.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes. But I get the question. I'm sorry.
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: That's my brother. We're going to ignore that. I apologize.
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: I apologize.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: Who is your brother? Which brother is it?
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: That would be my baby brother. They're both famous.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: Really?
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: All very famous. No. Nathan Diamond is my older brother,
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: who I love very much. And he works for the
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: Orthodox Union as the OU's man in Washington. And Judah Diamond,
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: who I also love very much, is the head of
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: the computer science department at Yeshiva University. So to computer
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: science majors, he is famous. There you go. Okay. I
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: am famous because I am on the Bethany Mandel show.
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: You're famous because you've written 50 Jewish shows. books. And
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: that's why I wanted to have you on.
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: In a normal world, we would have cut that call
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: and not had it stay on the show, but we're
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: going to have it stay on the show.
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: Okay, Judah, you're famous now.
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: You name dropped both of your brothers. And your older
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: brother is like low-key a neighbor of mine. Oh, yes.
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: I mean, that's kind of, Like when you reached out
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: to me and that I was talking to him, hey,
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: I'm talking about that. And he's like, oh, I know her.
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: Jewish geography worked.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So I wanted to have you on because it
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: is the new year and it's a new school year.
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: And whenever it's the holiday season, people always ask me
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: if they can come to a holiday meal. And so
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: we've had like crazy big holiday meals in the past.
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: And people always ask me, like, how can I teach
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: my kid about this? crazy religion. Some of them are Jewish.
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: Some of them are not. And it's like one of
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: the number one questions that I get from people. What
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: Jewish children's books do you recommend to teach? You know,
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: the one-on-one basics to kids about what is a Jew,
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: especially in this time when there is so much antisemitism,
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: we don't want to raise antisemites. I am raising antisemites personally.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: Just kidding. I make a lot of jokes about Jews
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: because Well, there's so much material to work with. I know.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you a quick story, and then you can
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: answer the question that I just asked you. I was
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: at the Museum of the Bible with a whole bunch
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: of homeschoolers, and none of them were Jewish except us.
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: Their creation thing's amazing.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: But yes, go on. The Museum of the Bible is fantastic.
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: And so I was talking to all the other moms,
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: and one of the moms works for a pro-Israel organization.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: She's not Jewish. And I made a joke, like, why
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: would you subject yourself to Jews professionally if you don't
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: have to? And everyone laughed. And then two kids from
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: two different families who were standing there asked their moms
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: about it later. They're like, why did that woman say
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: such a mean thing about Jews? And I was like,
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: good kids that you picked up on my anti-Semitism and
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: that you knew in the moment to not say anything,
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: but you made sure to talk to your mom about
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: it afterward. A plus parenting from those two families.
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: And A plus kids.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. So they should get a lot of points.
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: So we want to raise children who are not anti-Semites
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: like Bethany Mandel.
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Okay. But, you know, to that end, you know,
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: I think the answer to how do you raise kids
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: and let them know about the Jewish holiday in one
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: word would be joyfully. Like we don't have to guilt
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: them and we don't have to make them feel bad
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: and we don't have to say, oh, my God, I
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: hate Passover. because you said that before. But the way
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: you just described your feelings for Sukkot, your kids are
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: going to hear that. They're going to love Sukkot and
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: they're going to love hearing, like you're hearing the songs
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: of your neighbors and that's giving you joy. Other people
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: would hear the songs of their neighbors and like, oh,
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: could they shut up already? They're so off key. Like,
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: you know, just having this positive attitude and embracing that
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: spirit is the way to make, you know, there's this
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: old idea that when the kids would start first starts
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: a Jewish school back in the old country in Poland
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: and Russia, they would take them the first day and
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: they would take out the book with all the words
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: and they would put honey on the book.
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: So that their experience was that Torah is sweet and
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: learning is sweet. And we should do the same today
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: to give out the, I mean, we do give out
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: the honey on Rosh Hashanah. It happens to be, but
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: really it's, it's about doing things joyfully. And that's really
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: what I try to do in, you know, the books
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: that I'm so, like, honored that your kids enjoy them.
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: That's amazing.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: It helps that Kayla is a redhead girl.
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: Clearly, I was thinking about your daughter.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: Clearly. And I have two redhead girls, actually.
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: Oh, wow. Well, then I was thinking about both of them. Yeah.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: Well, my problem is we had the books for the
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: first daughter, and they were consumed by Okay. They are
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: not in great shape now. And so I had to
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: rebuy several of them.
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: This is not a problem for me. I like this idea.
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: I can't fight you on this.
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: Also, you know, libraries have these books too. Yes, that's true.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: Oh, I should check the library. Darn it. So Kayla
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: and Kugel. So Kugel is.
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: Kugel sounds like he's a food, but he is not.
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: He is a dog.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but Kugel is also a food.
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: But, well, he's named after food. Because when I was,
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: you know, trying to think of ideas of what I
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: should write, I noticed in my neighborhood, I have a
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: lot of neighbors who are dogs. And all of those
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: dogs were named after foods. There was like Oreo and
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: brownie and hummus and cookie. And I was like, huh,
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: a lot of dogs are named after foods.
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: That's so cute.
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: And then I was like, hey, there's a lot of
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: picture books about dogs. But there's no Jewish picture books
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: about dogs. So I think that's what's missing.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: I love it. I love it.
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: So if I was going to do a picture book
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: about a Jewish dog, he needed to have a Jewish
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: food name. And so Kugel was born.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: Kayla and Kugel. And so you have a couple series
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: that people might want to pick up. Amazon Prime, you
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: can pretty much overnight them. The one that's probably most
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: famous for this holiday is the super sweet Rosh Hashanah.
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: Right, Kaylin Kugel's Super Sweet Rosh Hashanah. Kaylin Kugel's Silly
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: Soup Coat. Kay, we're doing, right now, just went to
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: the printer this week, Kaylin Kugel's Shavuot Sleepover. Oh, cute. Yeah,
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: we're trying the alliterations wherever we can.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: Well, so it's funny because you named Kugel after, so
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: the dog is named after the food, but you wrote
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: another book about the name of our dog, Truman. Yes, yes.
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: That's why when you said that before, I'm like, is
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: that the only reason? Just the Truman Show? Or could
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: it be a president?
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: It is President Truman. So you wrote The Peddler and
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: The President. Seth, my husband, is obsessed with Harry Truman.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: Let me see.
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: Here he is. He's a good man. He's a good man.
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: For those of you, is this Jabotinsky or is it Truman?
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: So if, oh, here it is.
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: It's very hard to tell from bobbleheads, I gotta tell you.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: So for those of you who are watching.
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: Oh, that's his desk. The book stops here on the desk.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: So this is Harry S. Truman bobblehead.
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: And look at that phone. So period appropriate with the phone.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: Seth is obsessed. And so when you and I were
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: sitting and talking at lunch and you mentioned that you
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: wrote a book about Truman for kids, I was like,
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: I'm almost certain we own that because there's no way
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: that a children's book about Harry S. Truman is not
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: already in our personal library. Right.
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: Well, it's not just about Truman. It's about him and
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: his best friend, Eddie Jacobson, and their relationship. So it's
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: actually a biography of a friendship because they met when
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: they were kids. They worked around the corner from each other.
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: And then they lost touch because Truman, Harry moved away.
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: And then they reconnected when they both enlisted for World
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: War I. And they were at the same army base.
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: And the head of the base said, you guys, pair up.
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: You're in charge of the canteen. And they worked together.
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: And they were the first pair that ever made the
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: canteen profitable. And they had a great time. And there's
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: all these great details. They were the first to have
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: a cash register. And they made sure to bring in
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: things that the soldiers wanted to buy. And they arranged
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: for them to have haircuts at the thing. Like it
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: was really like business entrepreneurial canteen runners. And then they
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: both went to World War I. And they weren't, they
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: didn't fight. Harry was one place and Eddie was another place,
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: but the boat on the boat back, they were on
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: the boat together. So they had like weeks to talk
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: about like, what are you going to do when you
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: get back to the States? And they said, you know,
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: we ran this canteen. Let's go into business together. And
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: they started a haberdashery together. They started a men's hat store,
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: which went bankrupt because of the depression, because nobody was
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: buying fancy men's hats when they didn't have any money.
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: But even though their business ended in like, normally there's
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: a lot of contention when businesses fail. And with them,
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: it didn't. They still stayed friends forever. And Eddie never
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: asked Harry for anything. People would go to him and say,
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: why don't you ask him for this? Why don't you
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: ask him for that? He's like, nope. I'm not using
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: our friendship. It's a pure friendship. And I don't want
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: him to think of me that way until one day
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: it's time. And he does go to Harry because President
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: Truman is deciding, will the United States recognize Israel or not?
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: And Chaim Weizmann has just come into the country to
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: meet with Truman. And Truman's like, had it. There's been
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: so many advocates on behalf of Israel and not Israel.
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: And everybody's been bending his ear. And he's like, shouted
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: to everybody, that's it. I'm not talking to anybody about Israel.
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: I'm not meeting Chaim Weizmann. And all the Zionists are like,
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: oh my gosh, he's not meeting with Chaim Weizmann. This
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: is terrible. It's not going to work out for us.
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: And they called Eddie because they were desperate and they
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: knew he was friends. And they said, you got to
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: go to Truman and you got to ask him to
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: meet with Chaim Weizmann. And he did. This was the
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: first time that he decided to ask his friend for something.
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: And he did and it worked. And now we have Israel.
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: So yay, Eddie and yay, Harry. And my favorite part
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: of the story, I couldn't put in the book because,
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: you know, in the 1950s, Eddie wrote a first person
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: account of exactly the conversation that happened in the Oval Office.
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: I was able to use that. Like the dialogue in
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: the book is the dialogue that happened except for one line.
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: Because Harry, when he walked in, Harry looked at him
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: and said, no, when Harry finally said to Eddie that
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: he would meet with Chaim Weiss, when he said, you
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: bald headed son of a, I'll see him. And I
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: couldn't put that in the book. I love it.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: I love it. Well, you convinced my family. So you
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: and your husband together actually convinced us to go to St. Louis. Oh,
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: to see.
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: The Truman Library.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: Yes. We totally convinced to see the go to to
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: go see the Truman Library is your book at the
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: Truman Library I.
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: Feel like it should we've been discussing it with them
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: and I don't think they ever I think I gave
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: up at some point because you know it's how many
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: how much can you bother people but they helped me
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: with it love it so it definitely should be there
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: because they.
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: Helped me with it um Yeah, and so you convinced
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: us to go see the Truman Library because Seth is
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: so obsessed with Harry Truman.
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: Oh my God, he's going to be in love.
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: We have an entire shelf of our bookshelf that is
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: just Truman.
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: Well, then take Saks with you to their gift shop
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: because you'll have more to buy.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's a good point. Oh, we won't be able to. Well,
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: maybe we'll bring like an extra suitcase or something for
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: the way home.
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: Or take pictures and order them on Amazon when you
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: get home.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: I feel like that's cheating. I don't want to cheat
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: on a book.
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: Excuse me.
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: I just bought one of your books in a bookstore.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: I can't cheat. In a bookstore?
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: We appreciate the support. Authors everywhere. Thank you. Thank you.
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: I've written a book, so I understand.
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: No, but they have a whole room in that library
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: about that decision that Truman made.
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: Amazing.
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: Because it was really, it wasn't simple. Yeah. It wasn't simple.
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: There was a lot of issues, a lot of things
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: to think about. You know, unsurprisingly, the Middle East was
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: and is complicated. Right, right.
• 21:09
  Speaker 4: This week on Conservative Crossroads, the issue, has the Trump
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: administration done enough to advance a pro-life agenda? Chris Ullman
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: says no.
• 21:20
  Speaker 5: And, you know, one simply needs to look at the
• 21:22
  Speaker 5: number of abortions since 2023. And I think the pro-life
• 21:26
  Speaker 5: movement and, more importantly, pro-life voters have reasons to feel
• 21:30
  Speaker 5: disappointed in the second Trump administration.
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: Eric Tietzel says yes.
• 21:36
  Speaker 6: The proper standard by which to measure whether the Trump
• 21:39
  Speaker 6: administration is doing enough to advance a pro-life agenda is
• 21:42
  Speaker 6: the expectations of pro-life voters who elected him. Should they
• 21:46
  Speaker 6: feel vindicated? And the answer to that question is unequivocally yes.
• 21:52
  Speaker 4: Pro-life agenda and the Trump administration advocacy. Coming up on
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: Conservative Crossroads.
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: Ricochet.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: Join the conversation.
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: So what is sometimes complicated as well, I'm going to
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: segue a little bit, is raising readers, raising kids who
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: love to read. So I have a couple of like
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: things that I do in my family that I do
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: in my family. And I'm curious to hear what you
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: have up your sleeve as far as an author's perspective.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: So one thing is when our kids become readers, when
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: they're like fluently able to read books, I buy them
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: a very fancy, nice Kindle. Usually like a Kindle color
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: soft or something. And it's just- What a great milestone.
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: One of my sons has a habit of leaving it
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: behind in places. He left it behind multiple places in Israel.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: To the point where I have taped an AirTag on it.
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: I was going to say AirTag is the answer to everything.
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, get an alert when it's been left behind. So
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: he left it multiple places in Israel. He left it
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: in London before we had an AirTag on it.
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: It was a very international Kindle.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: And then he also left it in Athens. And that
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: one we were able to ship back. That was good.
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: So that's one of the ways is like buying them
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: a very fancy Kindle. And they love it. My younger
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: daughter said that she was up all night reading Garfield
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: on her Kindle. She's very tired today, so I believe her.
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: Garfield the cat, not Garfield the president.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: We're big Garfield fans in our family. And peanuts as well.
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: Eat, sleep, eat, sleep, eat, sleep. Yeah. Yeah.
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: My kids are always lasagna curious because of Garfield. They
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: think they like lasagna because Garfield. And then every time
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: I make it, they're like, oh, we don't really like
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: this very much. I'm like, okay, well.
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: Make out the tomato sauce and make it a cheese lasagna.
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: Then it's like mac and cheese. That's true. And then
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: they'll like it. Yeah.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: Um, the other thing is, which I've already mentioned, we
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: have 1 million books in our home and I actually
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: wrote about this for the mom or sub stack. And I,
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: we have a lot of downtime in our house that
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: is not programmed. And so there's just no screens and
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: they're bored.
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: And that boredom is the, is the key to creativity.
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: It is the creative key to motivation. It is boredom
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: is amazing. Yeah. Uncomfortable. Uncomfortable. but it's the key to everything. Yeah.
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: And that's what I love about Jewish holidays and the Sabbaths. Yes.
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: So much boredom. Yeah. And there's so much reading. I
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: read so much. Yeah. Well, I mean, you're on Twitter.
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: So yes, you know, he has his regular, this is
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: what I read over Shabbos.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: And he just wrote a book that came out last week.
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: It actually came out today, guys, but we're recording this
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: ahead of time. And it's, it's what I read on Shabbos.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: And it's like this, everyone should go buy that book.
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah. That's on my list. Yeah. Yeah.
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: And it's all about like reading Jewish history in the
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: Torah portion, right?
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: So he has a hashtag on Twitter. This is what
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: I read over Shabbos. And everybody's always posting these very intellectual,
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: philosophical Torah, thoughtful. And I like post kids books. I'm like,
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: this is what I read over Shabbos.
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: I was doing that for a long time, and now
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: finally my kids are old enough that they're starting to
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: play independently, and I'm not reading Elephant and Piggy and
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: Kayla in the Kugel.
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: I'm so sorry. You should get back in there. Okay,
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: repetitive is annoying, but kids' books should be read by
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: adults too. There's a lot of good stuff in there. Yeah.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: So I teared up actually at Red Sails of Capri.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: What is that? Red Sails to Capri. It's very– It
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: was very philosophical. It was very deep. We're reading it
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: for homeschool right now. I just actually, we started a
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: new homeschool curriculum called book shark and it's 90% reading
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: and I'm loving it.
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: What's the other 10% eating the books?
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: Like writing, like work or whatever. Okay.
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: I was just going with the shark and thought.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: That might be so much reading.
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah. That's wonderful.
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: It's amazing. So we're reading Red Sails to Capri right now.
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: And it's very, it's, it's, I'm reading it to my five,
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: seven and nine year olds. And it's one of those
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: perfect children's books that is just enough philosophical. And it's,
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: you know, getting the kids talking. And there was today
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: we read a chapter about how there's this mysterious cove
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: on Capri. And no one is allowed to talk about it.
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: No one is allowed to go to it. And we
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: talked about after the fact, like, what would you do?
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: Would you go to the cove?
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: This is a deep question. Yeah. So this is actually
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: one of my best like things to say to people
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: when they say, how do we raise readers? And I
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: think the answer is always, of course, reading with your children.
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: But I think people think that stops when they start reading.
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: And we never stopped and we kept reading aloud with
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: our kids. So even though older books and the chapter books,
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: we just, as a family, would read a chapter a night.
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: I remember we did Bloody Times, which is about the
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: chase to capture the guy who assassinated Lincoln. Oh, yeah. Yeah,
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: it was amazing to read that out loud to my boys.
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: They were just, like, fascinated because it was, ooh, what's
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: going to happen next? Are they going to get him?
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: You know, it was very exciting.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: We read The Phantom Tollbooth to my daughter. My daughter
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: could read by then. She was reading her own books. But, like,
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: we would, like, put her to bed-ish because she was big.
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: We weren't really putting her to bed. She was going
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: to bed. But then we'd sit there and read a
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: chapter at the whole booth and it was so meaningful.
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: So I don't think you have to stop. I think
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: at some point your kids will be sick of you
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: and you'll have to stop.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: I hit that point with my 11s and 12-year-olds, so
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: I'm not reading as much with them anymore. But there's
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: an amazing book called The Read Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease.
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: If I were to gift anyone a book when they
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: have a child, if I had like a million dollars,
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: and if I was friends with Jim Trelease, which I'm not,
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: so I'm not going to buy a thousand copies of
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: his book and give them as a baby gift, But
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: if I was friends with Jim Trelease, or if he
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: sent me a thousand copies of his book, I would
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: give his Read Aloud in a Hand book as a gift.
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: And one of the best pieces of wisdom that he had,
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: as well as Megan Cox Gordon, she wrote The Enchanted Hour,
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: also a fantastic book about reading aloud. And you might
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: be thinking to yourself, why do I need to read
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: two books about reading to my children?
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: You do.
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: You should read both of them. But Jim Trelease makes this...
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: very obvious argument, but it never occurred to me before
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: that even if my seven-year-old is reading, she's reading at
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: a seven-year-old grade level. And I'm reading to her a
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: book that is a middle school grade level with the
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: vocabulary and the syntax and all of those ideas. And
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: so even though she's capable of reading.
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: You're giving her a reach.
• 28:44
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: I'm giving her so much more vocabulary and so much
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: more complex ideas by reading.
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: Not to mention, you're showing her that you're willing, as
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: a busy, busy mommy of many kids and a podcaster
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: and all the things that you do, that reading is
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: so important to you that you're stopping to pause to
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: read with her. And so you're showing that you value it,
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: which means she gets that lesson. And you're spending time
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: with your daughter reading a book. Oh, my God. What
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: could be, you know, you were talking about community of
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: the Sukkot's. This is community with your kid. It's the
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: most beautiful bonding ever.
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: And another tip I have that is the opposite of
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: what you just said. We have kid Alexas in everyone's bedroom.
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: And we have it linked to an Audible account. And
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: my kids sit in their rooms and listen to books
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: all the time.
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: We used to get cassettes.
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes.
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: That's amazing that you have Alexa now doing that.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: So it's the same thing. And so my kids, when
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: they're feeling overstimulated by our house, which is very, it's
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: a very overstimulating place when there's five, six children, five siblings.
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, always someone to play with and someone to be
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: mad at.
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And so if you ever want to like go
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: retreat to your room, my kids have listened to Harry
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: Potter movies. So Audible just released a new Harry Potter,
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: which is amazing. It's so well done. So many sound
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: effects and everything.
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: Oh, wow.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: It's like radio. They've listened to every single book no
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: less than eight times. Right. So that's eight times eight, right?
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: I think there's eight books. So they've listened to them
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: a million times. Seven? I don't remember.
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: This is bothering me now. Okay.
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: And the CS Lewis series, the line wardrobe.
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: I've listened to that so many times. And so, you know, when,
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: when I need my kids.
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: Really, I'm going to like your kids when I meet them.
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: These are people that I want to chat with.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: They're lovely. And so we, we actually, we hit, we
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: went to universal studios in Florida, like a couple months ago,
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: six months ago, it was the peak of everyone's fandom.
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: For Harry Potter world. Oh my God.
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: It was amazing. It was like the best day of
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: their lives.
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: They really have such an immersive thing. Oh my God. Yeah.
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: We went there and it was like, my daughter was,
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: had decided she was Slytherin and she had her Slytherin
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: scarf on so proudly walking around and everybody's getting her
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: dirty looks. That was her.
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: We've named one of my daughters as a member of
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: Hufflepuff and everyone asks me if we're bullying her and
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: we're like, a little bit. But also she is a Hufflepuff.
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: She is at her core a Hufflepuff. And so she
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: has on the girl's door Hufflepuff common room. That was
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: her birthday present.
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: She owns it. She self-identifies as a Hufflepuff.
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she's a total Hufflepuff. But that was part of
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: my deal with my kids was that I wanted them
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: to get into Harry Potter. And so I said, if
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: you listen to Harry Potter, then we'll do Universal.
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: And I love these gifts you're giving as milestones. Like, well,
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: parenting has a very high percentage of bribery is part
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: of the technique. But that's like, I love the milestones
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: that you're picking. Yeah.
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: So I opened the door to Harry Potter and they
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: walked through because there was Universal on the other end.
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: And then they realized, this is amazing. And so there's
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: still massive, massive Harry Potter fans.
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: We got the little skinny books, the little ones, the extras.
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: One is Harry Potter's textbook. And one is the red one.
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: There's a red one and a green one. One is
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: Harry Potter's textbook. And one is she made extra books
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: in the thick of it all when they were first
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: coming out that were for charity that all the profits
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: went to charity. And I can't remember the titles offhand,
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: but Amazon knows.
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: Another thing I love about J.K. Rowling is that she
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: is totally red pilled on all the all the women's
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: rights trans stuff.
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there was a fantastic podcast, The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling,
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: which I like.
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: Hosted by one of my dear friends actually oh.
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: My god she was amazing yes amazing i recommend this
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: thing all the time because it was such a thoughtful
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: interesting explain the internet to me in a whole way
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: that i didn't understand before and how ideas are spread
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: oh my god it was so good.
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: Um and so the the host of that megan phelps
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: roper who is.
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: Tell her i loved it tell her i'm a dear.
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: Friend So she, first of all, she has a very
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: soothing voice. It's very... Well, it's NPR-ish. She has an
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: incredible voice. But do you know her backstory, Megan Phelps-Grover?
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: Yes, she said it in the thing that she used
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: to be part of that horrible, mean, terrible church. Cult, yeah. Cult.
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: Cult is a better way. Church suggests that there's something
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: good about it.
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: Cult.
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: Right, right. And how she had to question and question
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: to get out. Yeah. So now she was using that
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: as the lens to question and question... This issue was
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: so good. Oh, my God.
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: So she's still podcasting. She's doing lots of fun stuff.
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: Everybody go listen to that podcast after you listen to
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: this one. But get to the end of this one first.
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah. But she has a wonderful, soothing voice. But that was,
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: so anyway, that was how I opened the door to
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: Harry Potter. And all of my children were very eager.
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: And it was one of our, unfortunately, it was like
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: the most expensive trip ever. Though I did use points
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: for the tickets themselves, which was good.
• 34:01
  Speaker 4: Well done.
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah. But how much like how many wands did you
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: have to buy? How much swag? And how can you
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: say no?
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: And are all the wands now lost? Yes, they are.
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: They're with the Kindle.
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: $ 40 each. Yes, they did. Yeah, well, but it was
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: by far the only child who wasn't a fan was
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: our youngest. He's three. And the fire breathing dragon at
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: Grigot's bank.
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: Was he okay?
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: I've never seen a child more scared in my entire life.
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: I was going to say, that's not a.
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: Adorable. He ripped my necklace off my neck. He was
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: so scared. He was shaking. It was so cute. And
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: I felt badly being so delighted by his fear. But
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: it was so cute.
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: They did a really good job. That was a great response.
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: But he was so cute because he didn't want to
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: ruin anyone's time. So he wasn't like screaming or begging
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: to go. He just was curling into a ball and
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: rocking and shaking.
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: I'm feeling bad for him now.
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: So sad. But he was so earnest and so cute.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: And he was so genuine that I wanted to stay
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: because watching him was so- Oh, you wanted.
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: To terrify him more.
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: A little bit.
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: That's adorable.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: He was so cute. He was so cute. That is
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: weirdly one of my fondest memories of going to Universal
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: was just how terrified my three-year-old was. Okay.
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: And you think my daughter was transgressive.
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: There you go. There you go. But we, they're already
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: counting down. Like, when can we go back? So we'll see.
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: It was really, I mean, even just going on the
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: train between the two Harry Potter fans, like they have
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: the film in the window and you feel like you're actually, oh,
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: it's so smart.
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: It's so well done.
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: Artful it's really artfully done yeah.
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: Do you do you have any other tips and tricks
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: of the trade as far as raising a reader or
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: some of your favorite children's books that you've read to
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: your kids.
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: Oh my gosh if we do favorite for those.
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: Are two loaded questions for a jewish.
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: Author other tips it's just when you're reading it you
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: know i'm an author i'm also an illustrator i spend
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: a lot of time making these pictures We spend a
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: lot of time making it for every word. It's, you know,
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: the thing about children's books is they have so few words.
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: So you really like, you know, you have 500 to
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: 600 words to tell a story. Every word you really,
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: you know, you mash your teeth over, you know, you
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: really want to make it good. So a lot of
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: time people want to get to sleep. And I understand that.
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: I understand parents want to do that. But think of
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: it when you do read these books, take your time,
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: notice the details and, point them out, ask questions. Even
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: before you open the book, just look at the cover
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: and say, what do you think the book's going to
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: be about? Why do you think that? What do you
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: see on the cover that made you think that? You know,
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: just really pause and, you know, it's like a fine wine, right?
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: You don't have to guzzle it down. Just enjoy it.
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: I'm Greg Karumbas. Join Jim Garrity of National Review and
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: me each weekday for the Three Martini Lunch podcast. We'll
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: give you the good, bad, and crazy news of the day,
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: and lots of laughs too. Find us right here on
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: the Ricochet Audio Network at ricochet.com or wherever you get
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: your podcasts.
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: The other question you just asked was books that I like.
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, what age?
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: Like.
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: I can go to town.
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: The question that I get most frequently is like middle school.
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: There's, I feel like that's a tough one. That's a
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: tough one because there's so many great picture books. There's
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: very few Jewish books in that, in that middle, you know,
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: it's hard. Let's see. Lisa book. The assignment is a
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: fantastic middle school book about that really wrestles with antisemitism
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: in an age appropriate way. Josh Levy's time. I'm going
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: to get the titles wrong because I, but I'm going
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: to try. Josh Levy has a book called Time Loop
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: Bar Mitzvah, which is about a progressive Jewish kid, like
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: conservative reformist somewhere there. And an Orthodox kid are both
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: having their bar mitzvahs in the same hotel and they
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: get stuck in like a groundhog day time loop. So
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: they have to have their bar mitzvah over and over
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: and over. They have to read their Parsha over and
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: over that their speech over and over. And they're the
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: only two that are stuck in the time loop. And
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: they band together and try to get themselves out. It's hysterical.
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: And it's clever. And love, love, love that book.
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: I sent my children to camp. I sent them with
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: a book. Not that they read it. I sent them
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: with Chaim Potok, The Chosen.
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: Classic.
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah. My name is Asher Lev. Those are always, when
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: people ask me for Jewish books.
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: Those are already above middle grade, though.
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: Really?
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, a little bit. Well, what are you calling middle grade?
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: I'm thinking of nine, 10-year-olds.
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: No, I'm thinking middle school. I'm thinking 11, 12, 13.
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: Oh, so you're thinking middle school. I'm thinking middle grade.
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: When you say middle grade in publishing, that means between
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: picture books. Okay, you know. Right, right.
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: Well, maybe our listeners don't know.
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: Right. So whatever. So I was thinking about nine, 10-year-olds
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: and Bethany's thinking older. But Kai and Potok, I mean,
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: you know, required reading lists. It's about being an artist
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: and The Chosen about, well, choosing. I mean, it's called
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: The Chosen talking about the chosen people, but it's really
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: about each of those boys' choices.
• 39:38
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: So, yeah.
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: One of my fondest memories is at my middle school,
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: high school, I was the only Jewish kid. My last
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: name was Horowitz. Funny enough, I wasn't actually technically Jewish
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: because my mother wasn't Jewish, but I didn't know that
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: back then. So I just had a Jewish last name
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: and I was the recipient of all the anti-Semitism, but not.
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: So you should get all the points.
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: I'm not the beneficiary of actually being Jewish. So I
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: had to go through a conversion process later on, but
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: I didn't know that at the time. So I was
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: the only Jewish kid in this school and I had
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: like a rough childhood and the librarian knew about it
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: and very few people did. And so... I would skip
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: classes all the time and go hide in the library.
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: And I had created a nook for myself in the
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: poetry section because no one ever went there. And so
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: I moved all of the poetry books and stashed them
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: somewhere else. And I made like a little nook for
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: myself in the shelf itself. And I would just sit
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: there and read. And I read through all Chaim Potok's books.
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: And it made me feel so connected to Judaism. It
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: made me feel so proud to be Jewish. And, and
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: so I.
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: Sent my kids. You felt seen. Yeah. I know that's
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: such a like trendy word, but it's, but they talk
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: about how important it is that books are both windows
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: and mirrors windows so that we can look out them
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: and see others and understand their experience, but also mirrors
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: so that we can see ourselves and that it validates
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: our own experiences. So that's what you're describing.
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: And I can't like think of a more beautiful image
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: than you taking refuge in a library.
• 41:10
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: And so I sent my Jewish children who are actually
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: Jewish to Jewish summer camp with Chaim Potok. And I
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: thought it would be like this thing. I didn't read
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: a page.
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: Well, that's the problem when picking, like I would shove
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: books in my kids' hands all the time and they
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: would shove them back because they have their own thoughts
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: and opinions and they want to choose their own books.
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: This whole free will thing is really annoying.
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: I know it's awful. Who signed up for that anyway?
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: Okay. Yeah, well, we all have to deal with it.
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: But this is the kind of problem that I, I mean,
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: so we homeschool. And so, you know, in that prism,
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: I assign books. But like High and Potok, I want
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: them to just love it. There's this very funny meme
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: of a husband and a wife. And it's like, I
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: want you to want to do the dishes.
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: And I want them to want to read High and Potok.
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: Well, it worked with Harry Potter. You wanted them to.
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: Well, no, I incentivized it very expensively.
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: You incentivized it, but it worked. They love it now.
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: I know, but I had to spend many, many thousands
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: of dollars.
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: It's a worthwhile investment.
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: And what's the prize at the end of Chaim Potok? Like, oh,
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: let's go to Eastern Europe?
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: We can think of something. Give us a minute. The
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: prize is a visit to Brooklyn Crown Heights.
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: I don't know what the exciting prize is at the
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: end of Chaim Potok. I'm open to it. If people
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: want to send me a WhatsApp message.
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: This is your new challenge. Put it on Instagram.
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: People can comment on Instagram. What is, what is the
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: bonus for you read the chosen? And my name is
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: Asher Lev. I don't know what it is.
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: Here's a good one. A trip to Israel.
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: We already did that last year.
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: Do it again. It will still cost thousands of dollars.
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: So this, this is going to be a very controversial
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: take for our Jewish listeners. My kids didn't love Israel.
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: Why is that controversial? Why do we have that? Everybody
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: likes everything.
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: They were not huge homes.
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: Which part of Israel did you bring them to?
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: Every part. We were there for over a month.
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: Okay. It's far from home. The weather's not necessarily that good.
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: I don't know if you've noticed, it's very stressful there now,
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: even though they are the happiest country on the world,
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: and I'm sure they are, but they're also highly stressed. Yeah,
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: it was.
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: It was, you know, all the checkpoints and the constant
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: barbed wire everywhere.
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's tough.
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: And it's like, why is the barbed wire there? Oh,
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: so terrorists don't kill us. And they're like, oh, okay, great.
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: I mean, that's even scarier than the fake dragon.
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: You know, there's aspirational Israel in our hearts and the
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: romance of it, of what we want it to be
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: and our beautiful dreams. And then there's the country. Yes.
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: And the country is in the real world and it
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: has real problems. And some people don't like falafel. It's okay.
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah. We loved the food. We had a great time.
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: But they liked falafel.
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: So many burgers, so much ice cream. It was great
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: on that front. Right.
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: I mean, the kosher food options can't compare.
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: Right. Exactly. So the kids were not, did not feel
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: safe surrounded by the barbed wire and the checkpoints all
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: the time.
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Neither do most of the adults. It's a very
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: hard thing they're dealing with over there. It's not, you know,
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: you can't minimize it. And I still love Israel and
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: I'm still nervous and anxious and, and worried about my
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: friends there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: So I feel, I feel like a bad Jewish parent
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: because I went there. I mean, we spent five weeks.
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: We spent my kid. You just saying you can't send
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: your kids to Moshe Ba. I sent my son, one
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: of my oldest son to Moshe Ba. He came, he
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: went on the bus. He was there for four weeks,
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: came back, got off the bus and said, mommy, I
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: am not making Aliyah. I like America.
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: It's so funny.
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: Moshe Vah, just for your listeners, is a very Zionist
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: camp and is always pushing, we should all move to Israel.
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: It's beautiful.
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: They changed the lyrics to songs. What is it? My
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: Sweet Caroline is, May Galia, which means move to Israel.
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: I just love how he described how the climbing wall,
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: they have a climbing wall, and then at the top
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: it says, Aliyah.
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: Yes, it's move to Israel.
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a beautiful idea.
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: So my kids love Moshe Vah. But it's a great camp. Yes,
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: it's amazing camp. I always joke that when we got married,
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: that there was only two non-negotiables for my husband. One
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: of them was our sons had to be circumcised. They
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: had to have a bris, which is a joke because
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: that's a non-negotiable in every marriage always when you're Jewish.
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: And the other non-negotiable was that we send our kids
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: to this camp because my husband went to this camp.
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: It's right there with biblical law.
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes.
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: Send to Moshavah.
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: Exactly. So it was very much a requirement in my marriage.
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: I've never looked at another camp. I've never considered another camp.
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: It's Moshavah or bust. But my daughter came home from
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: her first year and said, I can't, we can't move
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: to Israel. We just renovated our kitchen.
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: Yes. Throughout the suburbs.
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: We survived the kitchen renovation. There's no way we're moving. Yes.
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: We have new counters.
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: No, we will die in this kitchen.
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: So may you live long. Amen.
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: And you know, it's just, that's it. That's it. Well,
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: thank you so much for this wonderful chat. It was
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: so funny when you asked me before we started recording,
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: what are we going to talk about? I was like,
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: I'm just hitting record and I trust that we'll be fine.
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: I really want to just hang out with you. This
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: is really fun. This was fun.
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: So where can folks follow you on social media and
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: buy all of your children's books? Like what Emma wrote
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: and the, what is it? The Piper and the Peddler
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: and the President.
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: The Kaelin Kugel series.
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: And the Kaelin Kugel series. Lazy Mirror, which is.
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: A biography I wrote about Mel Brooks for his 100th birthday.
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: There you go. As a parent, you're not supposed to
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: have a favorite child. I do, narrator. As a writer,
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: you're probably not supposed to have a favorite book. Theoretically,
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: you probably do as well. What are some of the
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: classics outside of the ones that I mentioned that folks
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: should pick up?
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: Oh, gosh, I really like and it is appropriate for
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: the holidays right now. I'm very proud of this book
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: I did called Creation Colors, which is a book that
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: retells the story of Genesis of creation. And it but
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: it does it through the lens of color. So it
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: talks about how on day one, God created black and white.
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: On day two, God created blue. Cause that's when he
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: creates the waters.
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: He created the greens. So that's all the plants.
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: Perfect for Christian listeners as well.
• 47:37
  Speaker 3: Everybody. Yeah. Cause it's the retelling of Genesis just through
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: the lens of color. I'm really proud of it. And
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: the illustrations I did in my paper cut, like, like
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: it's a traditional paper cut, but with a modern twist,
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: it's very edgy and graphic and I'm just super, super
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: proud of it. So I, I said, try to send
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: people to that, to that one. Cause it's not, The
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: Kalen Kugel series, which everybody kind of knows about now.
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: And it's a little bit under the radar. But yeah.
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: And now I just went to the Weizmann Institute last week.
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: They have a new exhibit, the Jewish American Museum in Philadelphia.
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: They just happened to open an exhibit called The Colors
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: of Creation. My book is called Creation Colors. And so
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: when I saw they were doing that, I reached out
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: to them. And now I'm like in their cohort trying
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: to design educational programming to go along with that exhibit.
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: Can you keep me updated because we we have going
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: to that museum on our to-do list and it's.
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: Great you i can't believe you haven't been there yet.
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: So we we went to philadelphia intending to go there
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: and they were closed the day we were there oh
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: that's not fair i know but on amazon right now
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: i just held up my phone and it was very
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: very glowy on amazon right now there's a three dollar
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: coupon So you can get the book $ 3 off. Look
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: at that.
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: What? It's a bargain. And we Jews, we do not
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: pay retail. So there you go. Sorry. Now I'm anti-Semitic.
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: Stereotypes exist for a reason.
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: That's true. Now I'm anti-Semitic.
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: Stereotypes exist for a reason. I love myself a good deal.
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: So where can folks find you on social media?
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: Okay. Social media on Facebook and on Instagram and on Twitter.
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: I am Ann Kofsky. I am my name. A-N-N-K-O. F
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: as in Frank. F as in Frank. S as in Sam, K-Y.
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: On Substack, I make coloring pages for kids that for
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: all of the Jewish holidays, I make a new one.
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: I send them out on Substack. The Substack's called Coloring Jewish.
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: I just made one for Sukkot that are like an
• 49:36
  Speaker 3: apple and a pomegranate bungee jumping from the top of
• 49:38
  Speaker 3: the sukkah.
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: I love it.
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: So if you want to get free coloring pages in
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: your inbox, or you want to send them to your
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: grandkids or whatever, sign up for that. And yeah, my
• 49:49
  Speaker 3: books are on Amazon, just like everybody else.
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: So I am completing my subscription to your sub stack
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: right now.
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for coming on. This was a
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: delightful conversation. And now I'm going to get free coloring pages.
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: And more Jewish books as if I needed them.
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: God willing, God willing, as long as I'm able to
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: think of something. It's always hard to think of new ideas.
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: I love it.
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: All right, until next time, guys, don't forget to hit
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: subscribe and leave us a review. It's been a hot
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: minute since we've gotten a review. If you guys could
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: leave a new review, that would be lovely. Until next time, y'all,
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: saddle up.
• 50:30
  Speaker 5: Ricochet.
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: Join the conversation.