[COLD OPEN] It sounds really bold to say this is the first book with Jewish characters set in New Zealand, but it might be. I hope it's not but I feel like it really could be.
Well, if so, shehecheyanu, and good job!
[MUSIC, INTRO] This is The Book of Life, a show about Jewish kidlit, mostly. I'm Heidi Rabinowitz. In September 2023, I Zoomed with Elissa Brent Weissman from across the world to record an interview about her new picture book, Hanukkah Upside Down. It's the story of a cousin in New York and a cousin in New Zealand, and how they connect during this winter time and summertime holiday.
Hanukkah Upside Down is a book that definitely sparks Jewish joy, and I'm posting a joyfully Jewish book every day of Jewish Book month, right through Hanukkah, on The Book of Life's social media. Look on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for suggestions of picture books, middle grade and young adult books that will bring you Jewish joy.
Also, please check out BookofLifePodcast.com to read my interview with Lisa Brown and her husband, Lemony Snicket, illustrator and author of The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming, now back in print! Hooray! [END INTRO]
Elissa Brent Weissman, welcome to The Book of Life.
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.
Elissa, you last appeared on The Book of Life in April 2019 to talk about your middle grade novel The Length of a String, which was a Sydney Taylor Honor Book. So, welcome back!
Thank you, really excited to be here!
And today, you're here to talk about your new picture book Hanukkah Upside Down. Is this your first picture book?
It is!
Okay, great. So tell us about Hanukkah Upside Down. What is it about?
It's about a pair of cousins. One of them lives in New York and the other one lives in New Zealand. And they are competing to see if Hanukkah is more fun in winter or in summer.
So what was the inspiration for this story?
Well, my family and I moved from Baltimore to Aotearoa New Zealand in 2019. And this book was inspired by our first Hanukkah in the southern hemisphere. We were used to having Hanukkah in winter. And all of a sudden, November, December is summer, and the days are very long, the sun sets really late. We're doing all sorts of summery things. We actually spent our first Hanukkah in New Zealand in a town called Wanaka. And so I initially thought a story called Hanukkah in Wanaka would be a lot of fun, purely for the rhyme. But it ended up kind of being turned into what is now called Hanukkah Upside Down.
That would have been great because, like the song Hanukkah in Santa Monica....
Oh, I'm not familiar with that.
Yeah, it's a Tom Lehrer song. It's like a spoof comedy song.
I'll have to check it out.
Hanukkah in Wanaka is an even better rhyme than Hanukkah in Santa Monica.
Yes. And yeah, I think Adam Sandler definitely would have included it if he knew about Wanaka, back in the day.
That's right. So would you mind giving us a pronunciation guide? You said it very quickly. But how do you pronounce the name of the New Zealand cousin Nora's hometown?
Ah, so it's actually not the name of her town. But it is the Māori name for the country of New Zealand and it's pronounced Aotearoa. So the Māori are... they're not native to New Zealand, but they were here long before the Europeans. And here there's been a big push to really incorporate Māori names and traditions and the culture into everyday life in New Zealand, pretty much everywhere here. Now you'll see it listed in newspapers, radio, everything, people will say both Aotearoa New Zealand, and there's even some political parties that are considering proposing changing the name of the country to Aotearoa at some point in the future.
Oh, wow. That's exciting. So I wanted to ask you a little bit more about the language because Nora practices that language with a friend on the fifth day of Hanukkah in the book. So how do you say the word that she uses and what is she saying?
Well, in the book - I'll just give a bit of background - we meet the cousins in the beginning, they decide to have their friendly competition because they love to argue about which one of them is upside down. Noah says Hanukkah is more fun in winter. Nora says it's "awesomer" in summer. And then the book proceeds with what each of them does during the day and then they tend to do the same thing every night of Hanukkah. As you said, it was the fifth day and night. So Noah learns some Spanish and there's a great illustration of his friend teaching him the Spanish name for squirrel, ardilla, and Nora practices her te reo Māori . It literally means the voice, the Māori voice. That's the name of the Māori language, and she is pointing to a bird. There's lots of really awesome native New Zealand birds that the illustrator Omer Hoffman put throughout the book. And this one in English would be called a fantail. And in Māori is called pīwakawaka.
Oh, that's wonderful, pīwakawaka.
Yep.
So as you say, Noah and Nora, which I love the names, by the way... Noah and Nora are both learning other languages from friends, as well as learning about other countries from each other. So talk a little bit about why you felt it was important to include this thread about language.
As I said, they each kind of do unique things. And then they also do things that they have in common. So on that day, Noah learns some Spanish, Nora practices her te reo, and then they both use Hebrew to lead the holiday prayers that night when they light the candles. In the US Spanish is quite a common and important language that a lot of people learn. I know I learned Spanish in school. Here in New Zealand I think some people, when we first moved, they said, Oh, we, we learn te reo the way you might learn Spanish, but it's actually, at least where I grew up in the US and where my kids were growing up in the US, we didn't learn nearly as much Spanish as they do learn te reo here. So it's been a really awesome bonus since moving here. Our kids, I mean, they're constantly singing songs in Māori, and I wouldn't say they're fluent by any means but they know a lot. And I've learned a decent amount just from listening to the radio, kind of the NPR equivalent that'll incorporate it or just words that are incorporated into everyday language, which is really cool. It's not so much of bilingual culture, but trying to be more inclusive culture. And so I thought that was a nice way to bring a little bit of that into the book, too. And the fact that as Jewish people we use Hebrew when we pray, and when we go to, if we go to synagogue, but not everybody really speaks Hebrew in their home or like me, unfortunately, I can pronounce Hebrew, I can read the characters and vowels, but I don't know what I'm saying for the most part. So it's just interesting to think about things we have in common in that regard.
Is te reo Māori a living language? People grew up using it as a first language?
It was for a long time. And then after the colonization, invasion, whatever you want to call it, it kind of became less in use. And I think we're only about a generation away from kids being beaten in schools for using te reo and so the language almost died out. And then in the past 10 or so years, I think it's been making a resurgence with a very big effort not just from the Māori population, but from the what they call the Pākehā European white population and trying to bring it back. It was a big deal, a couple years ago, singer Lorde who's Kiwi, she released a full album in te reo, it made a lot of news and kind of questions about her being Pākehā, if it's okay for her to have done that. But really, it's kind of been a concerted effort. And for the most part, the Māori community is on board with everybody learning the language and bringing it back.
So Noah and Nora communicate a lot across the distance. And they set up a shared photo album to share their pictures of their Hanukkah celebrations with each other. And I really love this because picture book depictions of technology usually tend to lag behind the times, even though it's like an everyday part of children's lives. So can you talk about that?
Yeah, I mean, I think the one hesitation towards incorporating technology into a story is that you don't want the book to be dated, and especially a picture book with the pictures... if we look at a picture book from even, you know, 10 years ago, if it incorporated what computers looks like, or what cell phones look like, suddenly, the book would seem so dated, it would almost be laughable. So you run that risk. And so a lot of times, it's easier to just keep the technology out. But we've gotten to a point where if you keep the technology out, then it doesn't feel like everyday life because technology is such a part of our everyday life, it's kind of hard to avoid now. And especially a story like this, that I think what's really cool is that technology has allowed family and friends and people to just be in touch from across the world in ways that we never could before, which is been amazing for my family since we moved really far away. Like the fact that we're able to have this interview, how cool is that, right?
That's true.
As terrible as the pandemic was in so many ways, one benefit of it was that it got everybody comfortable using things like Zoom and doing things technologically across great distances and brought us together in that way. That was another inspiration for this book for sure, the way that we talk to our families who live overseas, using Zoom and sending photos and shared albums and text messages, and videos, and all of that sort of stuff. So I wanted to make it clear that just because you live far away, it doesn't mean that you won't be able to maintain family ties, or that cousins can't be friends, or even have the sort of competition you have with those family members in your life when you do see them in person on holidays.
Well, this ties into something I was thinking about. The technology of video chat and shared digital photo albums, it plays a really important role in the story. Do you think that the same plot could have taken place effectively in pre-digital times? Like, would the cousins be able to build the same kind of relationship from across the world if they were writing letters and enclosing snapshots instead?
It would certainly be different, right? Like, I think that you could, and there's a certain relationship that writing letters and sending snapshots can build that's unique and special in its own right. I mean, I had pen pals when I was growing up, and that was a really cool thing. And it would have been cool to be pen pals with a cousin who lived in another country. But that wouldn't have been the same relationship that you can have now with video chat and shared albums and phone calls and texting. Yeah, I mean, I think for this story, the way that I wrote it, it definitely needs to take place now. One way you could do it, I guess, in earlier times would be to just sort of have it be a more informative narrator telling you, you know, this cousin did this, and this cousin did this, and they both did this. But they wouldn't be interacting with each other the way that they can so instantly nowadays.
Yeah, I think that would have lost a really important element of the story. This connection between them, I think, is what brings it so much heart.
Oh, thank you. I agree!
Do you want to talk a little bit about the various things that they do? There's sort of this compare and contrast thing going on as we go through the different days and nights of Hanukkah. So what are the things that are the same and different about their experiences?
So I think it starts with pointing out that in New York, the sun sets early and in New Zealand, the sun sets late. That was a big one for us, because you light the candles at sundown and at the end of December in Christchurch, where I live, the sun doesn't set till 9:30, 10 o'clock at night. That's really different from being in New York or Baltimore, where you can light your candles at 5:00, 5:30. I tried to use the language to make it sound rhythmic and similar so it'll be like: Noah has hot chocolate, Nora has hot chips. Noah throws snowballs, Nora does cannonballs. Or like, Noah slides on his skates, Nora surfs to the shore. So those sorts of things. Oh, and a lot of things, they eat a lot of things. Right? So Noah has pastrami on rye and Nora has hokey pokey in a cone which is an ice cream flavor. It's like a vanilla with, the hokey pokey itself is like carmelized honey pieces. And I'm so angry because there's a typo in the book where they wrote hokeypokey as one word and it's meant to be two and that's very embarrassing here in New Zealand. Obviously it'll be fixed for reprint. But then for instance on that page "Noah ate pastrami on rye, Nora ate hokey pokey in a cone, but on the third night of Hanukkah, they both ate potato latkes, warm and crisp and golden brown." So they, they have a lot in common even as they're doing things that are different.
As a Floridian I experience Hanukkah during warm weather too, like Nora. So I really appreciated you pointing out that the holiday is not necessarily associated with snow and hot cocoa for everybody. Before you lived in New Zealand, as you mentioned you were in Baltimore, so what were your Hanukkahs like? And tell me a little bit about, like, the transition from a winter Hanukkah to a summer Hanukkah for you personally.
Yeah, so we had winter Hanukkah but I was thinking as I wrote this book too, about just how northern hemisphere and even just northern-centric so much of Hanukkah imagery is, and that certainly goes for of course Christmas too. Like Christmas is so northern hemisphere centric and even here in New Zealand where Christmas is like maybe the warmest day of the year, the greeting cards and stuff have like snow pictures and things. It makes absolutely no sense. So yeah, I mean, it's nice to have a reason to step outside your perspective and just see things from another angle. One thing that we've kept the same from when we lived there and when we moved here, is the way we celebrate Hanukkah, which I really like. Because I grew up getting presents every night, which I liked a lot as a kid, I'm not gonna lie. But as a parent I wanted to kind of move away from that and not do eight nights of presents, especially because both my kids' birthdays are right around Hanukkah. So it's just, it's just a lot. So we came up with a plan as a family that shortly before Hanukkah begins, we kind of sit down and we make a list of how we'd like to celebrate Hanukkah for each of the nights with different things. So we'll have one night that's presents. But then we do maybe, a game night, movie night, go out for ice cream night, or maybe when we were in Baltimore, it was more like hot chocolate night. We always try to do some sort of mitzvah or tikkun olam, some sort of giving back one day or one night. And it turns into sort of a whole week of family time doing different things. So we've, now that they're a little bit older, it's like Nintendo night where we all play Mario Kart. Or now that we're in summer, maybe we'll go to the beach at night. But it's something that it's been a really nice tradition for our family, that we look forward to. And it also just helps with not having so much stuff.
That sounds like a great plan. I love that.
The illustrations by Omer Hoffmann are so charming and quirky. And I especially love the split screen effect he sometimes uses to show that the cousins are apart, but they're together in spirit. And my favorite is the illustration for the seventh night of Hanukkah, when we see the cousins playing dreidel from their two different houses, but it looks like they're playing together. It's sort of like a surreal vision of what a really good Zoom call can feel like. So I wanted to ask what your favorite illustration is.
I love that one too. I love all of them. This is my first picture book and so I was really excited to see an illustrator bring it to life, but also kind of nervous because you just don't know how it's going to turn out. And I actually was the one who suggested Omer Hoffmann to my editor. I had seen his work in some PJ Library picture books. I really love the energy that I think his pictures convey. It just feels really vibrant. There's a sense of motion and activity in all of his pictures, and the color is really great. I think there's a lot of humor in his illustrations, which I love. And then I also really like the way that he often draws a scene from an interesting angle. He'll do these like shots that look like you're looking from above, like it's almost as if you're a bird looking down at an angle, which I don't know that I've really seen in a lot of illustrations. And I think it's really unique. And that, sort of what comes out in that one that you mentioned, on the seventh night when they're playing dreidel, and there's - I'm looking at it now - there's one dreidel in the middle of the page and a diagonal line, and one family's on one side and the other family's on the other, and the color palette is slightly different. But otherwise it really could be like they're just together in the same room, which I think is such a cool way to, to illustrate this story and that connection. Like all good picture books, the little details that you can pick out as you go through, that had nothing to do with me, like there's an early page where "Noah rocks fuzzy boots and Nora climbs rocks in bare feet" and Nora is reaching for this little lizard. And if you look through, that lizard appears multiple times throughout the book, like she took it home and it's now living with them.
Oh awesome. I didn't notice that.
Yeah, take a peek for that and you'll start to notice it. I just love the humor too, like that page with "Noah slid on his skates, Nora surfed to the shore." You see that actually Noah's like, spread out across the ice and his glasses fell off. He didn't slide on his skates, he like really, like slid across the ice. And Nora surfed to the shore is a very generous way of describing what happened to her because her board is nose deep in the sand and she's flat on her face while a crab looks on. So I love the humor there. And I'd say my other favorite... Oh, can I do two more?
Sure!
I like how he makes it look like an online photo album on some pages where you just see, you know, 16 different thumbnails of photos in the background as though you could almost take your mouse and hover over one and it'll get bigger and you can see the whole thing, which I think is awesome.
Well, before you tell me the last one I have to tell you, I had the urge to hover my mouse... you can see the wallpaper, like the photographs, the family photographs that they've used as their desktop wallpaper, and then there's all these files on top of it?
Yes!
Like I felt like I wanted to click and see what was in the folders.
I know, there's like a tomato soup recipe that sounds good. There's like homework and stuff. It's so creative. And then I really like leading up to the last night of Hanukkah when "Noah rode to the 102nd floor and Nora hiked up 300 meters, they both marveled at great miracles then and now and all around." He did such an awesome job of just drawing the view from the top of the Empire State Building and the view from what you might see in the Southern Alps here in New Zealand, and how they're both pretty miraculous, but in different ways.
Excellent. You mentioned the lizard that I hadn't even noticed that you can follow through the story. Are there any other afikomens, so to speak? Are there hidden details in the text or in the pictures that you know about?
There are probably some I'm not even aware of, that I think kids will pick up on more than I will. But there are a few. As I said, I love all the birds that are incorporated throughout and just animals in general. I sent Omer some photos of New Zealand. He's Israeli, he lives in Israel now, but he lived in New York for a while and has travelled in New Zealand. So that was huge, because we really wanted somebody who had at least been to New Zealand. But still, I sent him some photos. And also just some interesting things that I've noticed about living here, and one of them is that people walk around barefoot all the time. Just on like city streets. I'm told it's again, connected to the Māori tradition of feeling the earth. But we used to live right by a big university and college students were just, they'd be skateboarding to class on the city streets like barefoot, even in the winter. And so if you notice throughout the book, whenever Nora is around, oftentimes she's barefoot, and the other people in the pictures are barefoot, which I think is a cool thing. Oh, the only other one I'll add is on the very first page, "Noah lived in New York," the picture of inside his house, if you look at the books on his shelf, one of them is one of my books, Nerd Camp.
Oh, that's great. I love that. And you know, that is something that we do like over Zoom calls, we look at people's bookshelves.
I definitely do.
That's very cool. You talked about wanting to find an illustrator who had been to New Zealand, but that makes me think, well, are there not illustrators from New Zealand? And then that made me think, why was the book published by a US publisher instead of a New Zealand publisher?
There are lots of fabulous New Zealand illustrators. I personally don't know of any who are Jewish. The Jewish population in New Zealand is super, super, super small. We definitely wanted somebody who was Jewish. And then why was it published by a US publisher? Because the market is just so much bigger. There's awesome New Zealand books, and it's so hard for these authors, and illustrators and publishers to get their books to the rest of the world. But when you've got a huge market, like the US, those books get exported everywhere. There's one children's literary agent in New Zealand -you don't necessarily need one to get published here, but there is one. And she has told me, you know, she has so much trouble getting foreign publishers to pick up New Zealand books. They say, you know, our kids won't relate to it. And she's like, it's completely ridiculous, New Zealand kids read the world. And it's true. That's been so cool as a reader since moving here, because the US is such a big market that for the most part, the overwhelming majority are American published American authors and American books. But here in New Zealand, it's so small that there are books from New Zealand, but also in the bookstores and libraries there are so many books from Australia, the UK, the US, books in translation from Asia. As a reader, it's been amazing just being suddenly aware of all of these authors I wasn't familiar with before. And so Kiwi kids really do read the world. But just as an author, myself being published in New Zealand, the print runs are tiny, the money is tiny. I mean, and the chances of it then reaching a larger audience are tiny, unfortunately, and having already, you know, an agent in the US and the connections in the US, I'm really fortunate to be able to be published in the US, and then the book can be available here.
Okay, that makes sense. Well, that connects to the next thing I wanted to ask you. I've seen books about Jews in North America and Europe and Asia and Africa, but never before in New Zealand. And for that matter, I haven't seen much from Australia, either. There's Hitler's Daughter by Jackie French, and there's The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, who are both Australian authors, but I think their books, both center on World War II in Europe. So can you tell us about any books besides yours that show Jewish characters living in your part of the world?
This is gonna sound really crazy, but I can't. I don't know of any. You were kind enough to send me this question ahead of time. I asked my kids who are 10 and 12, both really big readers, if they'd encountered anything and neither of them could think of anything either. I would imagine there have to be some books with Jewish characters or content set in Australia. There is a fairly sizable Jewish population in Sydney and Melbourne and other Australian cities. It sounds really bold to say this is the first book with Jewish characters set in New Zealand, but it might be. I hope it's not but I feel like it really could be.
Well, if so, shehecheyanu, and good job! So tell us a little bit about Jewish life in New Zealand. And if you know anything about the history of Jews in New Zealand, please share that too.
Sure. So as I said, the Jewish pop ulation here is very small. The population of New Zealand is 5 million. So New Zealand has two main islands North Island and South Island. Most of that is on the North Island where Aukland is the biggest city. There's probably the most Jews living there, and then Wellington is also on the North Island. Both Auckland and Wellington have both Orthodox and Reform synagogues, one of each, I believe. But I live in a town called Christchurch, the least Jewish sounding town you could, you could come up with. It's on the South Island. It's actually New Zealand's second largest city behind Auckland, but the population is about 400,000. And the Jewish population is pretty small. So we do have a synagogue. It's called Canterbury Hebrew Congregation. Canterbury's the region. Christchurch Hebrew Congregation just wasn't gonna fly. It's a big tent, because the population is so small. I grew up on Long Island where there are lots and lots of Jewish people. And then I lived in Baltimore City, in greater Baltimore, there are lots and lots of Jewish people. And then having moved here, I think it actually has made Judaism a bigger part of my life, a bigger part of my identity, my family's identity, because you can't take it for granted. If you want it to be part of your life and identity you you need to work to make that the case. Our temple doesn't have a rabbi, so it's community led. And we've got such a great, small but really awesome community of people from all over the world. And I will say there aren't very many New Zealand born Jews, it's mostly people who've moved here, from America, Canada, the UK, South Africa, Netherlands, so really all over the world, which is really cool. But my kids were the only Jewish people at their school and then another family moved to town, an Israeli American family who we know from the synagogue were homeschooling, their older boy decided he want to start school, he started at the same school. And we're like, I think this school now has the highest number of Jewish kids in Christchurch with ,with two or three, right? That said, there have been Jews in New Zealand from the time of European colonization. So New Zealand's a pretty young country. So like beginning around the 1840s, I think Jewish people were coming from Europe, as merchants, as traders, as business people. In the 1850s and 60s, there was a gold rush on South Island of New Zealand, and a lot of Jewish people came in along with other people trying to strike it rich. I know at least the history of our little synagogue is that it kind of has these waves of activity that correspond with waves of immigration. So leading up to World War II, there was a big influx of people escaping Europe. And then I believe there was a Hungarian uprising in the 50s that brought more Jews from Hungary. The 1990s, I think, brought a lot of people from South Africa. And actually what I find really interesting is even in our temple right now, that's happening again. So before my family moved here, there was very little going on at the Christchurch synagogue then, shortly after us, a bunch of other families with school aged children arrived from different places. And it's now having this 'nother peak of activity with these new immigrants. The other thing is, despite having such a small Jewish population, I was, I was looking this up and I found the best estimate is probably about five or six thousand. So that's like 0.1% of the population. There have been three Jewish prime ministers of New Zealand. The first one was in 1873. This guy Julius Vogel, who also had this company Vogel's Bread that's still in the supermarkets. And then most recently, Sir John Key, he was Prime Minister from 2008 to 2016. John Key is not like practicing, but he's Jewish. I think he's still counts. I don't know who the middle one was. Sometime in the past 100 years or so.
Interesting. As I'm sure you're aware, book banning is rampant right now in North America. Is that the case in New Zealand?
No, actually, the whole approach to education is one thing we've really been happy with here and it's more holistic. Kids are outside a lot. There's the arts, lots of sports. It's not so much just kind of testing, reading, math, the way we felt like it was in Baltimore public schools and other parts of the US. The internet has made all sorts of things go global. There have been real benefits, like we talked about before. But there have been real downsides of course, especially getting into like a second, third year of the pandemic, there was anti-vax efforts here that sort of saw the occupation of Parliament and things like that. But in terms of the book banning, that hasn't come here yet. When we moved here, it felt like we moved 20 years in the past. It's kind of been catching up quicker, but still is sort of a little bit behind what seems to be happening in other places. So I really hope that that's not coming. But with everything being so global, it might be.
Okay, well, good luck. I hope that it doesn't come to New Zealand, and that's heartening to hear that it hasn't actually spread everywhere. So...
Yeah, at least, at least so far. Well, knock on wood. Yeah. Yeah.
So it's tikkun olam time. What action would you like to call listeners to take to help heal the world?
I would encourage people to step back from social media. I personally left social media entirely about five years ago. I was nervous to do that because I had been told by everyone, the prevailing attitude was, especially as an author, you need to be on social media, that is part of the job. And I found it doesn't have to be part of the job. It was giving me a lot of stress and anxiety. And I was comparing myself constantly with people, and I was making it look like everything was amazing and my books were doing so well, when really, I would just scroll through Twitter and see everything but my book, and awards I didn't win and festivals I didn't attend, and it wasn't healthy for me. And I have been so much happier since I left. And I have not noticed any difference in terms of my career. I think that even if you're not an author, or you're not somebody who's expected to be on there for some reason, just take a look and think like, is this truly a positive thing in your life? And if it's not, or even if it is sometimes positive, but the times it isn't outweigh the times that it is, just, just leave. You can, it's fine. And, like, honestly, I keep in touch with the people I want to keep in touch with in more meaningful ways now, because I call them or I text them, or I zoom with them or email them. And it's so much less superficial. I feel a little bit disconnected from the children's literature world, you have to work a little bit harder to know what's going on. But not like feeding the beast and not being part of that cycle of just like jealousy and making people jealous and stressing about it. It's such a good thing. And it's just so bad in so many ways for society. And so I would just say if you're only there because you feel like you're going to miss out on things, or that it's somehow important for your work or to be updating your family this way... there are other ways to do those things. And so if it's not sparking joy, as they say, then just don't feel the need to do it.
Yeah, and that's interesting, because you're definitely talking about social media as distinct from other forms of technology, because your book is showing the positive aspects of using technology to stay connected.
Absolutely.
So you're not talking, like as a Luddite or something.
No, like, I'm not saying get rid of your tech, go off the grid. I mean, that's good for the planet, I guess. But keeping in touch with people, I would say is one of my biggest strengths. I still am friends with people from pre-K. I mean, like I, seriously, even though I live in New Zealand, right. And all of the technology has made it so much easier for us to do that, and to really bring us together, but I think it works best when you're doing it in meaningful ways. And I don't think that Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, all of those sorts of really social media things that are all about bragging and liking things and scrolling, are for me. I just don't consider them to be positive ways.
Thank you for that interesting suggestion. Nobody else has said that before on the show. What are you working on next?
I have a new middle grade novel coming out in 2025. I guess I can say it's about children of momfluencers. So it sort of relates to what we were just talking about. And I've got a script of a graphic novel that I'm excited about that is out on submission now. So fingers crossed, somebody will pick that up. I really enjoyed writing this picture book and I've got some picture book texts in a drawer that I need to, well in a digital drawer, that I want to take out and kind of dust off and hope, hope something comes of those but it's more middle grade on the horizon for now.
Where can listeners learn more about your work? Not on social media!
I am not on social media. But I'd still love to hear from you. You can go to my website, which is ebweissman.com. There's my email address on there. I would love to hear from readers. There's also links on there to other podcasts, other things I've written, interviews, things like that, that you can learn more about me there. Or of course, you could check out any of my middle grade novels from the bookstore or the library.
Is there an interview question that you never get asked that you would like to answer?
One question that I've occasionally gotten when I do school visits is, do you have any siblings and are they authors too? Kids usually find it interesting to hear that I have two brothers. They are not authors. But one of them is a classical pianist, Matthew Weissman, who just has a new album out of the complete works of a contemporary classical composer. And my little brother Michael Weissman is an editor who worked for Disney animation for a very long time. And now he's working for DreamWorks. And he's done some Peanuts specials for Apple TV+, and all sorts of things. So typically, when kids hear that when I would say Mike works for Disney, they were always like, why are YOU here? Like, we want to meet your brother. Yeah.
Well, you have a creative family. So that's nice.
My parents, they're creative people but don't have creative professions or weren't involved in the arts at all. But all three of us chose such stable careers. Classical music, animation, writing books.
Elissa Brent Weissman, thank you so much for speaking with me and Happy Hanukkah!
Thank you so much for having me. Happy Hanukkah to you, too!
[MUSIC, DEDICATION] Hi, this is Aviva Rosenberg, Chair of the Sydney Taylor Book Award Committee. I'll be joining you soon on The Book of Life podcast. I'd like to dedicate my episode to Rebecca Levitan, my longtime best friend and fellow librarian and the real reason that I'm involved with the Association of Jewish Libraries and Sydney Taylor at all. Thanks, Becca.
[MUSIC, OUTRO] Say hi to Heidi at 561-206-2473 or bookoflifepodcast@gmail.com Check out our Book of Life podcast Facebook page, or our Facebook discussion group Jewish Kidlit Mavens. We are occasionally on Twitter too @bookoflifepod. Want to read the books featured on the show? Buy them through Bookshop.org/shop/bookoflife to support the podcast and independent bookstores at the same time. You can also help us out by becoming a monthly supporter through Patreon. Additional support comes from the Association of Jewish Libraries, which also sponsors our sister podcast, Nice Jewish Books, a show about Jewish fiction for adults. You'll find links for all of that and more at BookofLifepodcast.com Our background music is provided by the Freilachmakers Klezmer String Band. Thanks for listening and happy reading!
[MUSIC, PROMO] Leah is not your typical Chinese Jewish owner of a Kosher Chinese restaurant. She is also a woman on the run from Yuk-Wong, a drug lord determined to marry her against her will. And if that wasn't enough drama in her life, she is also the host-slash-recipient of the Spirit of Water with all the power that entails. When Yuk-Wong's minions find her in New York, she decides to return to China and face her figurative and literal demons. Join me for a conversation with graphic artist Fabrice Sapolsky about this second story of the Intertwined universe, The Last Jewish Daughter of Kaifeng at JewishLibraries.org/NiceJewishBooks.
