THE BOOK OF LIFE - Festive Friends Part II: Asian Jewish Kidlit with Mixed-Up Mooncakes

8:17PM Sep 26, 2024

Speakers:

Heidi Rabinowitz

Sheryl Stahl

Erica Lyons

Christina Matula

Deke Moulton

Keywords:

jewish

hong kong

book

erica

mixed

jews

love

years

write

author

christina

story

live

chinese

podcast

sukkah

books

children

people

growing

[COLD OPEN] Have either or both of you actually made mixed-up mooncakes?

I don't cook at all!

It's tried and tested in my kitchen. They have dates and walnuts and honey. They're very delicious.

Vu den?

We both brainstormed what ingredients would go into this to combine both cultures. I do love mooncakes. The Jewish Community Center in Hong Kong makes kosher mooncakes every year.

[MUSIC, INTRO] This is The Book of Life, a show about Jewish kidlit, mostly. I'm Heidi Rabinowitz. October 2024 is packed with Jewish holidays. In honor of this, I've got a two part series for you, both dropping at the same time for your binging convenience. This mini series is called Festive Friends, because each episode features a pair of friends talking about books relevant to our fall holidays. In Part I, you met Gayle Forman, author of Not Nothing, and Marjorie Ingall, author of Getting to Sorry. Now in Part II, you'll hear from friends and co-authors, Erica Lyons and Christina Matula.

Lately, kids of mixed heritage have finally been getting their mirror books, and a great example is Erica and Christina's new picture book Mixed-Up Mooncakes, about a Chinese Jewish family celebrating the Mid-Autumn Festival and Sukkot. I love the cozy atmosphere of this book with its double harvest festival fun, and I love the comfortable way in which the Chinese and Jewish cultures are mixed together, both literally and figuratively in the story. FYI, the Mid-Autumn Festival, which is also known as the Moon Festival, or the Mooncake Festival, took place this year on September 17, 2024. Sukkot, also known as the Feast of Booths, or the Feast of Tabernacles, starts on the evening of October 16, 2024. There's more about both holidays in the show notes, along with links to Erica and Christina's websites, their reading recommendations, a transcript, the other Festive Friends episode, and more at bookoflifepodcast.com, where you can also leave a comment or email me to let me know about your favorite fall holiday: Jewish, Chinese or anything else. Chag sameach! [END INTRO]

Where are each of you right now?

Right now, I'm on family holiday in Tel Aviv.

And I am currently in the middle of the forest in Finland, where we have a family cottage.

Oh, cool!

So this is not a backdrop, this is really the forest.

Yes, I see beautiful trees behind you. Christina, you live in Finland, correct?

Yes, I live in Finland. I married a Finn but I am actually Canadian of mixed Taiwanese/Hungarian parentage.

Okay, and Erica, where do you live?

I live in Hong Kong, which is where I met Christina. I've lived in Hong Kong for over 22 years, but actually it was also my father's base for business when I was growing up. So it's sort of full circle.

Would you say you're from Hong Kong?

I'm from Hong Kong, I'd say I'm from New York also. I grew up mostly in New Jersey.

Okay. What is it like to be Jewish in Hong Kong?

It's a great place to raise a Jewish family. We have a really beautiful, tight knit community. You know, my kids have grown up with the benefits of living in a really, really big Asian city, but in a really, really kind of small town feel. We have a beautiful day school, pluralistic Orthodox ethos. So you get the whole spectrum of Judaism and Jewish observance and diversity.

Can I jump in?

Go ahead!

I lived in Hong Kong for about 14 years. We just left about three years ago. But that's one of the things that surprised me about Hong Kong when I first moved there, that it was so diverse. And not just majority Han Chinese, but there were so many different Asians. There's a huge Indian community, a Jewish community. It is such a magical place to live.

And in Finland, what is it like to be Asian and/or Jewish there?

I am not Jewish, but my brother in law, so my husband's sister's husband is Jewish, and there's quite a small community that's tight knit. There's a Jewish school right in central Helsinki, where my nieces go. I think it's quite a diverse place. That's a new thing for Finland. When I first started coming here over 20 years ago, I really felt like there weren't that many non-blonde people. But now I've been coming and there are so many different races and cultures that are here that consider Finland home, who are fully integrated. It's a wonderful place to live, despite the really long winters. It is beautiful and you need to appreciate the outdoors. And they say that there is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing. So I've ditched anything chic from Hong Kong, and now Helsinki chic is a pair of Gore-Tex pants, and like a Gore-Tex jacket with lots of Merino wool under layers.

All right, thanks. So our topic for today is Asian Jewish kidlit. So to people who think Asian Jews are a rarity, what would you say?

Well, my long answer would be many, many days long. So I'm the chair of the Hong Kong Jewish Historical Society, and seen as a quasi authority on Jews of Asia in general, but specifically China and India. Yeah, I mean, Jews have had a presence in Asia for thousands of years. So they're not necessarily, you know, visible, but the history is long, and there's a really rich culture and unique history.

Would Asian Jews tend to be Ashkenazi, or some other designation? How would you describe it?

It depends, right? Because when you say Asia that's so vast and so broad and encompasses so many histories, different diasporas. You have the Indian Jews, which each subgroup has a different history in and of itself. And even when you come to the Jews of China, it's a lot broader than that as well. I mean, you know the Kaifeng Jews, whose history goes back to the ninth century, the Shanghai Jews who were refugees during World War II, and the story that most people know, but in Hong Kong, the history starts with the Baghdadi Jews in the mid 1800s. It's such a long and rich history. So you can't really give a short answer.

That's fair. So can you explain, what is Mixed-Up Mooncakes about?

It's about a young girl who is mixed. Her father is Chinese and her mother is Jewish. It's autumn time, which is her favorite time of year, and she is celebrating these two festivals together at the same time. She goes to the market with her Nǎi Nai, and then the Jewish market with her Zeyde. They build a sukkah in their backyard. And she wants to further combine these holidays. So she has this idea to make mooncakes out of traditional foods that you would eat at Sukkot.

We had this idea of combining the two festivals, because naturally in my world, in my children's world, these festivals are one festival. They occur at one time. So we wanted to be able to have a child that can celebrate both festivals in a really, really authentic way, and she finds a creative way to do this. We were also really careful to try to balance both families and both traditions and make sure that there was an equal hand on both parts of her identity throughout the whole story. And also men and women. I think that's why we chose a grandmother and a grandfather from each side to balance that out and have each of them have this role in shaping the holidays.

How did you two end up authoring this book together?

Actually, it was in SCBWI, in their newsletter they had a PJ Library open call for submission, and that's how I got the idea, because I would never have thought to write a Jewish story. But they were saying you don't need to be Jewish to write. And I was like, oh! And so that's what got me thinking. And then it was a diversity roundtable discussion we had at our chapter meeting. And I started talking to Erica about that and like, what do you think? You know, we just kind of toyed around with it. It was a project based on our mutual love of the festivals.

Because, again, I am raising Chinese Jewish children. I'd also written an article a number of years ago called, I think it was Chinese Lanterns in the Sukkah. I think that was actually even our original title for the project. But just this idea that when you live in Hong Kong, you know, no matter where you come from, no matter what traditions you bring, Mid-Autumn Festival is just part of our calendar. So I think that it organically developed that we were going to write this story about this child experiencing both festivals.

I'm not sure where Mixed-Up Mooncakes takes place, actually. Somewhere with cool autumns. Where does it take place?

We're going to differ, I think, on our answers. In my head, it's New York City. Christina's going to say Canada.

Somewhere in Canada, somewhere where the leaves turn and become beautiful colors. But I think it's also nondescript enough to be anywhere in the northern hemisphere, so everyone can feel like that could be them.

Perfect. Yeah.

When we were writing it, we purposefully didn't set it to one specific location, so that it can be anywhere and sort of have this much more universal feel.

Have either or both of you actually made mixed-up mooncakes?

I don't cook at all!

The recipe is... I was testing recipes at home, so it's, it's tried and tested in my kitchen. They have dates and walnuts and honey. Yeah, they're, they're very delicious food.

Vu den?

We both brainstormed what ingredients would go into this to combine both cultures. I do love mooncakes. The Jewish Community Center in Hong Kong makes kosher mooncakes every year. When you go to stores now, mooncakes, I think Christina, you'd agree, right? There's, there's everything now, there's, you know, ice cream mooncakes available, you know, sort of commercially, so everything's possible now.

So I've seen online pictures of mooncakes, and they are so pretty! They have these beautiful decorations on the top, and I believe that that's because they're put into a mold. So can you tell us about the molds? And is it possible to get a Jewish star mooncake mold so that you can make ones that look like in the story?

You can buy the molds. I mean, in Hong Kong, they're sort of on the street. I've never seen one with a Magen David in the middle, but there's many, many different designs available.

I think you can get them on Amazon now, and they're kind of like a mold, and they have, like, a little spring, and it just pushes it out and it makes the nice design on it. We actually have a silicone muffin maker, and so I used those because I wanted to make sure that the mooncakes, the dough would allow, like, use at home for people who don't have a mooncake mold, because that's quite niche. So I just used the silicone mold, and you could just pop them out. I have not seen them with the Star of David, but you can do like Zeyde and put it on with your chopstick.

Tell me about the Mid-Autumn Festival.

My favorite festival! It's kind of like Chinese Thanksgiving, where families come together, usually around a big meal, and you give thanks for what you have. Some people say you're supposed to make a wish for the coming year, but it's really about giving thanks. Like, many cultures have a harvest festival. So it happens usually, in a Gregorian calendar, like September to October. This year it's September 17, and on the lunar calendar, it's always the 15th of the eighth month.

In Chinese mythology, there's the Jade Emperor, Jade Empress, who live in the heavens above the sky, and they rule all the immortals, and they have ten children who are the ten suns. Legend has it that the suns decided to come out all at once because they were quite rogue and they were naughty, and they didn't want to take turns anymore. And of course, then there was a big drought, and the earth became too hot. So there was a young Archer named Hou Yi, and he shot down nine of them, leaving only one in the sky. And he was given a potion by the immortals for his bravery, because he saved the world. There are different iterations of the next part. In some iterations, the wife steals the potion because it's an immortality potion. She steals it because she wants to be immortal herself. But I like the version where she actually wants to save it from a thief who breaks into her house when her husband isn't home, and she doesn't know what to do with it, so she drinks it herself to save the world from this greedy thief And then she floats up to the moon, where she stays forever. And Mid-Autumn Festival is the day where the moon is biggest and brightest, and it's also the day where her and her husband can communicate. He's still on earth, and he lays out her favorite foods to remember her, and she's shining her moonlight on him, and we celebrate with some of the same foods that she loved to eat, like the little round cakes and the pomelos and the persimmons, which all have double meaning in Chinese. Like pomelo would be blessing, because the word for pomelo has the same sound as the word for blessing, and the word for persimmon has a similar sound to a saying about wishes coming true. So these are the foods you eat on that day.

Christina, you've written another book about the Mid-Autumn Festival, The Shadow in the Moon, which won Best Book Award in 2019 from the Chinese American Librarians Association. So...

Yes, I did.

Mazel tov on that! Tell us about that other book.

It came out in 2018 with Charlesbridge. That book actually tells this legend. It's set in the modern day, where you have the grandparents coming over, and you have a table setting, and the mooncakes. The mooncakes are decorated with a beautiful lady. And the two granddaughters asked their À-má, which is Taiwanese for Grandma, who the beautiful lady is. And she says, It's Chang'e the lady in the moon. And then she goes on to tell them the story of Hou Yi, the Archer and his wife, Chang'e. After the story, they go out to the park with their lanterns, which is what I did with my own family, and then we would look at the moon and hope that Chang'e shines brightly on us.

I don't want to assume that our listeners are all familiar with Sukkot. So Erica, would you like to explain that holiday?

It's a Jewish holiday, and it falls in the month of Tishrei, on the 15th day. Also a harvest festival, commemorates when the Jews left Egypt and they wandered through the desert for 40 years, and they built these sukkahs, or booths, sort of these huts throughout the desert, and slept in them. Now, how that's translated to modern times is people will build a sukkah or a little hut or booth, usually in their backyards. When you grow up in Hong Kong, like my kids did, or in New York City, where I was before, most people don't have a backyard. We live in high rise buildings, so for us, it's a communal sukkah that's built, and everybody sort of has a hand in decorating it, and it's just decorated really, really, really beautifully. And also, there's the four species, which is mentioned in Torah, and all of those are brought together. The four species are the lulav and the etrog. And the lulav is like a palm branch, and it's combined with a myrtle and willow and then they're bound together, and then held together with the etrog, which is like a citron, sort of like a lemon. You take the lulav and the etrog together, and there's a bracha that you say, so a prayer that you would say, and you wave them east, south, west, north, up and down. You need to also be able to see the stars from the sukkah. So when you build this hut, it's built not with a roof, and it's meant to be sort of impermanent. There's branches or leaves on the roof so that you can still see the night sky, which is also an important part of Mid-Autumn Festival. So the festivals just really, really, just work together in a beautiful and sort of natural way.

So you both really lean into your own heritage, in this book that you've done together and in your own separate writing. So was your writing like that from the beginning, or did you grow into it?

Okay, can I back up and tell you how I started writing? So this is not something I thought I would do. I grew up, I studied science, I went to business school. And it was only when I moved to Hong Kong, and I had the opportunity to stay at home because I had a newborn, and then I went back to school and learned some Mandarin at Hong Kong U, that I really began to lean into my heritage. So growing up in Canada, I've always loved my mixed heritage, but also I wanted to fit in, and I didn't want to, you know, I didn't, I didn't really lean into it until I became an adult, when I started learning Chinese and living in Hong Kong. It was the first time ever I was part of a majority, and it was really liberating in a way I never thought about before. When you study the language, you learn about the folktales and mythology. I loved it, and I just wanted to share it. At the same time, my daughter was in kindergarten, and we were invited to Mid-Autumn Festival at school, and the Chinese teacher was reading her a story about the legend behind the Mid-Autumn Festival, and it was something I was learning about in my Chinese class. And it's funny, I didn't know about this story growing up. I loved Mid-Autumn Festival because I loved the mooncakes my mom would bring home from Chinatown, but I didn't actually know much more about it. When we got home from school that day, I was like, Oh, I'm going to go to the bookstore and buy you this book, but in English so I can read it to you. But I couldn't find one, and that's when I'm like, Oh, well, I'll just write my own. So that's kind of how it started. But this whole process of me leaning into my heritage and appreciating it more and really wanting to share it with my family and eventually with others, happened when I was an adult, so in my 40s.

Thank you. And Erica?

I was always really connected to Jewish history and Jewish culture. Studied Jewish history in university, but I was a lawyer first, and then came to Hong Kong. But like Christina, I came with a newborn and also a one year old, so I wasn't working. And at one point I was going to go back to work as a lawyer, but my husband said: you know you can, but he said, you know, you have an opportunity that most people never have, and it's to figure out what you really actually want to do, what your passion is. I knew it was to write, and I didn't know what it was to write at all, so I did any writing jobs that I could get. I wrote all different kinds of things, and then I started my own magazine in 2009 and it was called Asian Jewish Life, and it was focused on the Jewish communities of the Far East, preserving the history and culture and also connecting the communities of one another, and also changing people's perceptions about who Jews are, where Jews hail from, and what Jews look like. So I closed my magazine and I was going to write a novel, and then Covid hit. So my novel ended up becoming a picture book, and that was my very first picture book, Alone Together on Dan Street. It's literally a pandemic story, and I wrote it during the pandemic. And, you know, in Asia, and China specifically, the pandemic was a lot longer than it was in other places and a very, very different experience. So I kind of found myself for the better part of two years at home with many children and my husband in a small flat. So writing a novel, editing my novel, at that point was difficult. So Alone Together was what came out of that.

I love Alone Together on Dan Street. It's really a very touching book, the way it makes me remember that isolation of quarantine, and that way that we all had to find bridges out of that isolation. I think it's a really moving story, so thank you for that.

Thank you.i

So last fall, I interviewed Richard Ho and Lynn Scurfield about their Jewish Asian picture book Two New Years, which compared Rosh Hashanah with Lunar New Year. And now this year, we've got your book, Mixed-Up Mooncakes, which combines Sukkot and Mid-Autumn Festival. So all this comes after many years without any Asian Jewish books at all. So what do you think has changed?

I think that people are starting to see the value of having children be able to see themselves in stories. I say to kids when I go to school visits, I always say, you know, growing up, I didn't see Jewish kids in books, and I certainly didn't see a Jewish child that's part Persian, part Hungarian, which I share with Christina, and part Ukrainian. You know, that wasn't in a book, but it can be, you know. So I should write that character.

Like Erica, growing up, I didn't really see any books that featured Asian characters, except maybe ones that didn't stand the test of time. In the last 10-15, years, there have been more books about kids who are Asian, but I have seen not that many about mixes. And now I think mixed kids, there's so many now, and for me, it was really important to write something where my own experience of being happy and confident in my background showed through. Now there are a lot more mixed books, including the one you mentioned, Two New Years. Yeah, I feel like that's kind of a new thing, and I'm really happy that the books that I wish I would have had as a child are now coming out.

Erica, your books are very international. You've written stories with settings in India, Yemen, Israel, China. Have you traveled to all these different places that you've been writing about? Or how have you ended up representing all these widely divergent Jewish experiences?

Not Yemen. I've never been to Yemen. I don't think it's an opportune time to go to Yemen right now. But anywhere else I'm writing about, because it's places that I'm really familiar with, places that I'm comfortable with, and places that I really know. If I'm not part of that group, then I really, really know and I'm integrated into that group, and that they trust me. So certainly, when it comes to the Indian Jewish community, I'm really, really closely connected with the Indian Jewish community, specifically the Bene Israel. I've been there many times as well. Yeah, Yemen. I'm not going to Yemen anytime soon.

Well, how did you end up writing the book about Yemeni Jews?

I was in Israel, and I have a friend, and she was telling sort of matter of factly her family story, and she said, Oh, there was that time when my family walked from Yemen in 1881 to Israel. And I thought... what?? I was very familiar with the story of the Yemenite Jews Magic Carpet, which was incredible. It was a rescue operation. But I love this because it wasn't a rescue operation. It was Yemenite Jews, their own narrative entirely from start to finish, they felt compelled to go to Israel and to return home, and they walked, and it took nine months or longer to get there. So.

Thank you for all of these international contributions!

[MUSIC, BREAK] Announcement time! First, I want to remind you to enter the drawing to get a free tote bag with The Book of Life logo on one side and the logo of the Nice Jewish Books podcast on the other side. Leave a review on your podcast app or share our podcasts on social media, then email a screenshot of your post to bookoflifepodcast@gmail.com. Your participation not only gets you a chance at this lovely tote bag, it also really helps our podcasts to reach a wider audience. The deadline is October 24, 2024 when Simchat Torah begins, the ultimate Jewish book celebration.

Secondly, I am pleased to share that MulticulturalKidBlogs.com has invited me to do a Jewish Joy series of interviews with diverse Jewish authors. The first one features Ruth Behar, who was on the podcast in May 2024 to talk about her novel Across So Many Seas. I'll put a link in the show notes at bookoflifepodcast.com. Now back to our Festive Friends conversation. [END BREAK]

Are there any other children's books that include Asian Jewish characters or other mixed heritage characters that you would like to shout out right now?

One that I really, really love is Chicken Soup, Chicken Soup by Pamela Mayer, illustrated by Deborah Melman, and it's a small shout out to PJ Library. I'm the PJ Library director for Hong Kong. It's a favorite of PJ Library Hong Kong, China, and Singapore. We request it all the time. We request additional copies and give these out. It really, really resonates with our communities. And if I can give one more, but it's actually three more recommendations...

Great, the more the merrier!

So not Jewish, but mixed Asian. It is to Christina's books, and it is to the whole Holly-Mei series, to all three books.

Oh, thank you!

Beginning with the Not-So-Uniform Life of Holly-Mei. And they're mixed Asian content and they're middle grade, and they're absolutely wonderful. And also they talk about being a third culture kid, which all of our kids as expats in Asia are. So they're really, really special, and I recommend those.

Thank you, Erica. Well, just touching on what Erica said, in the third book, The last Holly-Mei book, which is The Not-So-Simple Question, this is specifically where she contemplates her identity being mixed. When someone says, Oh, you're only half, sort of in an innocuous way, but it makes her think, like, how can I claim my Taiwanese heritage if I wasn't born there? I don't speak Taiwanese. I've never lived there. I've only visited. So it's about that, and her realizing at the end that it's really what she feels in her heart and not what others expect that matters.

But the book I'd love to shout out is called The Truth About Dragons by Julie Leung and illustrated by Hannah Cha. It is such a beautiful picture book, and it just starts with a boy who is having a bedtime story by his mom, and she's visibly Chinese, she tells him to get his cloak on and his boots and go into the forest. So he goes into a typical North American or European forest, and he meets an older woman who tells him about dragons who are fire breathing and live in caves and hoard gold. And then he goes into a different forest, where there's a Jade Rabbit and there's like a lady on the moon, and the dragon is blue and brings water to the crops. So you realize at the end of the book that he's mixed and that both ladies represent his grandmothers from both sides. But she ends saying something like, most adventurers have only one path to call their own, and some demand you choose between the clouds and the caves, but it's inside your heart where both the forest and the mountains live, or something like that. But it was, I just thought it, it was such a beautiful but gentle and nuanced message about being mixed and cherishing that and not worrying about expectations of others.

Erica, you are super involved with Jewish Asian life in a lot of different organizations. So can you tell us about the many hats that you wear? And which of these activities do you love the most?

PJ Library Hong Kong is really, really special. I'm the founder and the director. Particularly when you're living outside of North America, you know, children are living in places like Hong Kong, China, Singapore, Japan, we can't go to our local bookstore and buy a Jewish book. So PJ Library has been really, really special to be able to bring these books into my region and to Jewish homes. Also, the other one that I'd say, again, I'm involved with a lot of organizations, is the Hong Kong Jewish Historical Society. We preserve the history of Jews in Hong Kong and Jews in Greater China and the region as well. Both of these in different ways, also is huge help for me, for my writing and my research as well.

Okay, and I think you're involved in even more organizations than that. Is that, right?

Yeah, I've been the representative to World Jewish Congress for Hong Kong, China for about 15 years now. So I've had really some incredible experiences, including meeting the Pope to speak to him about antisemitism. It's been an incredible opportunity representing those communities.

Wow, that's amazing. It's Tikkun Olam time. So I'd like to ask each of you what action you would like to call listeners, to take to help heal the world. Christina?

My message is to all the kids who are of mixed heritage, whatever that mix may be, to remember that being mixed is a gift. You have two or more cultures to call your own and cherish, but that it's okay sometimes to feel unsure and not know where you fit, and that's natural and not to be defined by the expectations of others, but know that it's what you feel in your heart that matters.

That was beautiful, Christina. So mine is ditto what Christina said, but also with the alarming rise of antisemitism, you know, we've seen book launches, author panels and performances canceled. Jews have been barred from participation in art fairs, festivals, exhibitions. You know, I think that these are all really deliberate attempts to erase us and erase our identity. So my call for tikkun olam is to increase your support for Jewish writers, but also for Jewish artists, performers, and anyone working really, to preserve Jewish culture and history, and I think it's more important now than ever.

All right. Thank you. What are you working on next?

Well, I have a book coming out, On a Chariot of Fire. It's illustrated by Siona Benjamin, and that's with Levine Querido. The origin story of the Bene Israel Jews. But what I'm really excited about is, I'm on my probably third revision with my agent for a middle grade, and it's historical, it takes place in China, and there's also magical realism in it. So I'm really, really excited about that.

Great. That sounds wonderful. And Christina, what are you working on next?

I have another picture book coming out next April. It's called The Beat of the Dragon Boat, illustrated by Nicole Wong, and it comes out with Sleeping Bear Press, and it's about a young boy and his grandfather. They get ready for the dragon boat festival and they have Nǎi Nai making zongzi. It touches a little bit on the legend behind the dragon boat festival but it's more of a modern day story.

Sounds great! Is there anything else that either of you would like to talk about that I haven't thought to ask you?

I wanted to give a shout out to Tracy Subisak, who is the illustrator, and she did such a wonderful job. And she's also mixed Taiwanese and Eastern European heritage. She put in little details that neither Erica nor I would have thought of, like the pomelo hat on the baby brother, which is something they do in Taiwan. I didn't realize 'cause my mom never taught it to me, but you know, after you eat the pomelo you put the pomelo skin on your head, and it's supposed to bring you good luck.

I wondered what he had on his head, so thank you for clearing that up!

We had to ask as well, actually! We thought it was maybe a baby helmet. You know, I love it, I love the idea of using that.

And what was really important to me, which I really love about how this came out, is that it was really important to me to have the Jewish grandparents be observant. So, from the very beginning, as soon as the book was sold, you know, the first comment I made was that if I have any say in this, you know it's really important to me to have the grandfather wear a kippah throughout the entire story, which he does, and I really, really love that. And I think that we all sort of learned a lot, because they were so careful and I was so appreciative, because when it came down to tiny details... There's one scene at the very end where they're all holding these lanterns. But the lanterns are lit. In the book, the first night of Sukkot is also the Mid-Autumn Festival. There was a number of times we went back and forth on that, where I had to explain that the grandfather can't hold the lantern. Everybody else can hold the lantern in that scene, but the Jewish grandparents are observant and they wouldn't be able to hold something that was electric or battery operated in that scene. So I'm so thankful that everyone really respected that, and that stayed sort of my vision from the very beginning.

Thank you. That's a very interesting detail that I wouldn't have thought of as I was looking at the pictures. Do you have any favorite scenes or illustrations that you can tell me about? Besides what you mentioned.

I love when she is in the sukkah with her grandparents. They have their arms around her and you can see that she's so loved.

That's one of my favorite spreads as well. And also when they're both in the kitchen together. I think it's the scene where they're ready to take the mooncakes out. Both grandparents, both sides of her and both parts of her identity are represented in that. And also I love that the grandfather wears these oven mitts, because I think that a lot of books tend to put the oven mitts on the women. So I love that the grandfather is just so present in that moment, is such a part of baking with his granddaughter, and also his granddaughter's grandmother as well.

Is there an interview question that you never get asked, that you would like to answer?

My own upbringing being mixed: my father was a refugee from Hungary and my mom is from Taiwan, and they met at university in the 60s. But just how both those cultures had a huge impact on my life. Even though my dad was an only child, we had a cottage in the forest in Quebec, which, it was a tiny tiny lake and it was only Hungarian people. The Hungarian Association of Montreal bought this old Boy Scout camp, and they only sold the land to other Hungarians. Which might not be legal anymore! But yeah, it was a wonderful place to grow up, in that community. And then my mom, she had nine siblings and I have more than 20 first cousins. So the Taiwanese part of my life was really influential. And I loved growing up being mixed, and it really defines who I am.

That's so interesting, thank you for sharing that. And Erica, would you tell us a bit about your family make-up?

I grew up part Persian, part Hungarian, part Ukranian, all Jewish. But I'm raising my children in Hong Kong for their entire childhood. My youngest two children are Han Chinese, they were both adopted. Hong Kong is sort of the ideal place to raise them. Hong Kong is just, it's always an assumption everything is going to be mixed in many many ways.

Wow, all right! Very interesting. Where can listeners learn more about each of your work?

I'm on Instagram. I'm on Twitter or X still, a bit. And also on BlueSky somewhat, a tiny bit. But my website as well, which is Erica-Lyons.com. Lyons with a Y, not like the animal.

And Christina?

You can find me on my website, ChristinaMatula.com, on Instagram at @ChristinaMatula, and on Twitter, which I'm not really on very much, which is @MatulaChristina because I couldn't get the other one.

Erica Lyons and Christina Matula, thank you so much for speaking with me, and chag sameach!

Chag sameach!

Zhōng qiū jié kuài lè. Which is happy Mid-Autumn Festival,

Awesome! Thank you both so much.

Thank you very much. It's been a pleasure.

[MUSIC, DEDICATION] Tune in during November 2024 for my Creature Double Feature 2-part series about Antisemitism and the Supernatural, with authors Deke Moulton and Emi Watanabe Cohen. Deke is up first.

I am Deke Moulton. I am the author of Don't Want To Be Your Monster, and Benji Zeb Is a Ravenous Werewolf. Tune in next time on The Book of Life podcast to hear my interview, and I would love to dedicate this episode to the wonderful community Temple Beth Hatifiloh here in Olympia, Washington, which has welcomed me as someone who is not from this area and given me such a warm sense of community, and has really helped me write my books.

[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] Genevra Ex is a best selling mystery author with a major quirk. Instead of inventing new characters, she hires a real life person to be the main character of her book. The latest hire is a young woman named Rory, after an intensive three months of interviewing, Genevra gifts Rory with a ticket on the newly refurbished Orient Express. After boarding the train, Rory is shocked to find her brother, her best friend, and her ex-fiance also on board. She also finds a manuscript of Genevra's latest novel and a letter from Genevra with secrets that rock Rory's life. Although the trip takes them through gorgeous Italian countryside, tension among the passengers magnifies until it explodes into murder. Join me for a conversation with author Jaclyn Goldis about her book The Main Character. Find us on your favorite podcast platform or at JewishLibraries.org/NiceJewishBooks. Also, if you think anyone else you know might enjoy this podcast, please share it on social media or write a review of it and then send in a screenshot for an opportunity to win a tote bag with our logo and the logo of our sister podcast, The Book of Life.