Thank You, Readers!

It's been a thrill to connect with our readers through social media these past few months! Your comments, feedback, and enthusiasm is much appreciated!

As our thanks to you, we're offering 10% off your next order at karben.com! Use the coupon code SOCIAL* when you check out, and the discount will be automatically applied to your order.

While you're shopping, be sure to check out what's new! Here's a preview. Click on the covers for more information...

*Offer not valid with any other discounts. Web orders only. Expires 2/28/2010.

Awards Excitement!

No, we're not talking Golden Globes and Oscars, here. The Sydney Taylor Book Award winners have just been announced! The prestigious award, administered by the Association of Jewish Libraries, exclusively honors children’s and YA books of Jewish content.

Kar-Ben is pleased to announce that both Nachshon Who Was Afraid to Swim by Deborah Bodin Cohen (pictured left), illustrated by Jago, and Benjamin and the Silver Goblet by Jacqueline Jules (pictured right), illustrated by Natascia Ugliano, have won the 2010 Sydney Taylor Honor Award for Younger Readers! The authors and illustrators will be honored at the annual AJL conference in June 2010.

Four additional Kar-Ben titles were recognized as Sydney Taylor Award Notable Books:

The Secret Shofar of Barcelona by Jacqueline Dembar Greene, illus. by Doug Chayka
Sukkot Treasure Hunt by Allison Ofanansky, photos by Eliyahu Alpern
Menorah Under the Sea by Esther Susan Heller
The Man Who Flies with Birds by Carole G. Vogel and Yossi Leshem

Mazel tov to all the winners! It is an honor and pleasure to include your books in our catalogue.

Answering the Big Questions

As an adult, it's easy to slip into what I call "fact-mode," accepting the truth, being serious, reading the newspaper and thoughtful books, working hard, and being responsible. But what about your sense of wonder? Imagination? Ability to question the world around you? What about the spiritual side of yourself? Sometimes, one needs to step out of "fact-mode" and think more like a child.

Amy Meltzer's latest post at Homeshuling got me thinking about the big questions about God that kids ask their parents and teachers. Who is God? Where is God? Why does God make bad things happen? While adults seem like wise, all-knowing beings, a lot of the time we're still figuring it out for ourselves. Ideas about God can take a long time to develop and are deeply personal, and can't be explained as easily as why the sky is blue or disproving the theory of "boy cooties." How does one begin to talk about God with a child?

I like this article by Rabbi David Wolpe from Interfaith Family because he emphasizes that in Judaism, there's no one idea about God. There are many different interpretations. In discussions with children, even the grown-ups can learn something.

Rabbi Wolpe lists some thoughtful tips about how to talk to your kids about God, including the importance of telling stories. Many of our books are based on midrash, which is a form of interpretation of the Torah that fills in the gaps that a plain reading of the text leaves out. Bible stories like Abraham's Search for God and The Seventh Day use midrash to help form an answer to a child's questions about God. To go along with Rabbi Wolpe's article, reading stories like these and asking your child what he or she thinks can help kick off the discussion and grow your child's own understanding about God.

What about when bad things happen? The book Where Do People Go When They Die? tries to answer that very question in a simple and open-ended way so that families and educators can read it with a child. Though it's a difficult question to answer, this book provides comfort in a time of uncertainty.

Just as children grow up and form their own ideas about God and the world, we learn that it's enriching for us as adults to step out of "fact-mode" and pose some of the same questions to ourselves.

Topmost book image from Wikimedia Commons.

More about Menorah Under the Sea

Our new book Menorah Under the Sea is unique in many ways. It's about a marine biologist who celebrates Hanukkah in an unusual way– at the bottom of the ocean! David Ginsburg was in Antarctica doing research on sea urchins (say that 5 times fast!) during Hanukkah. Since the sun doesn't set during Antarctica's summer (winter to us in the Northern Hemisphere), David creatively brought Hanukkah with him on a dive.

Besides being a book for Hanukkah, Menorah Under the Sea is packed with information about Antarctica and photos of David's time at the McMurdo research station. Penguins are scattered around the research station like pigeons gather in the city. The land is covered with ice and snow and no trees or shrubs.

Learn more about David's research and celebrating Hanukkah in Antarctica by reading the excellent interview on My Jewish Learning's blog Mixed Multitudes.

Hanukkah Nosh

It's certainly cold and snowy here in Minneapolis, which makes for cozy holiday gatherings! This Hanukkah, besides making fried latkes and sufganiyot, why not add a new recipe? Share a new food with your little ones and get them involved in the kitchen.

Here's a new take on Hanukkah Gelt: chocolate covered apricots! These are easy and fun to make, but be sure to make extra if you've got hungry dreidel players.

Amy at Homeshuling was inspired by our book Harvest of Light and decided to integrate olive oil into her Hanukkah celebration. Olive oil is a healthy alternative to fried foods (not to mention more sophisticated!) and there's lots you can do with it. Host an olive oil tasting featuring infused olive oils and crusty bread. Infuse your own olive oil, or see what your local specialty store has to offer. It makes great gifts!

You can even bake with olive oil! Here's a recipe for Almond Citrus Olive Oil Cake from TC Jewfolk's column Noshin'. It looks yummy and light, a nice alternative when you've had too many doughnuts and cookies.

But if you're craving a doughnut, try these burmelos from Turkey!

Recipe adapted from Hanukkah Around the World

Ingredients:
1 egg
1 cup of milk
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. baking powder
1 1/2 cup of flour
Vegetable oil, for deep frying
Your favorite syrup (maple, chocolate, etc.)

1. In a medium bowl, beat egg and milk using a fork or whisk.
2. Add cinnamon and baking powder, mix to combine.
3. Add flour in stages and mix until thick.
4. Heat oil in deep frying pan. Drop the batter by tablespoons into the hot oil, keeping fritters a few inches apart.
5. Turn the fritters over and let both sides brown evenly.
6. Remove from oil and set them on paper towels to cool and drain.
7. Serve with your favorite syrup. Yum!

Other recipe recommendations:

Smitten Kitchen's latkes (with beautiful photography!)

Sweet Potato Latkes from TC Jewfolk

Apple and Pear Beignets with Vanilla Bean Sugar – a French twist on sufganiyot

Word Art

A friend from college gave me a Wordle as an early Hanukkah gift. What's a Wordle? It's a tool (or toy) that creates a word cloud based on the text you put in. She used text from our Facebook pages, but you can use any sort of text you like to create a fun and unique work of art.

I made a Wordle out of text from our blog, and it's fun to see what topics are prominent: Book, Holocaust, Israel, Birds, etc. Heavily used words are in larger text, less used words are in smaller text. (Click on the image to see it better)

My Jewish Learning made Wordles out of the Ten Commandments and the Shema, which I think would be useful in a classroom setting for young children's budding vocabularies. These also make great gifts for word nerds!

After checking out our Wordle, are there any topics you'd like to see the blog cover? Feel free to leave your comments below. Any feedback is welcome! Thanks for reading.

For Kurdistan Jews, Hanukkah is a Time to Reuse & Recycle

Author Tami Lehman-Wilzig was kind enough to share with us a Hanukkah tradition from Kurdistan. Tami writes about all kinds of multicultural Jewish holiday celebrations and customs at her blog. They are a great way to integrate new traidtions into your classroom or family. Thanks, Tami!

The three “Rs” – Reduce, Reuse & Recycle – have become today’s environmental mantra. As Westerners who really have it all, we never stop to think that there are Jews who don’t need the ecology cause to practice the “Reuse” principle. Take the Jews from Kurdistan and their charming, low budget way of shedding light on Hanukkah’s oil miracle. Kurdish Jews who could not afford a Hanukkiah used eggshells as cups for wicks and oil. There was no egg on anyone’s face because they didn’t have enough money. On the contrary. Eggs were eaten either for breakfast, lunch or dinner and the cracked egg shells were saved for lighting what I call the Eggnukia, every night. Tell your students to scramble home and try out this neat Hanukkiah alternative. Every which way, it gives the correct message – they’ll learn how to reuse and at the same time not take material goods for granted. If anything, maybe it will prompt them to start accumulating their own nest egg for next year’s Hanukkah presents.

For more Hanukkah customs, check out Tami's new book Hanukkah Around the World. Get a 20% discount on your order when you shop at karben.com and use the discount code TAMI when you check out. This offer is available until January 15, 2010.