The Book of Life: Jewish Kidlit (Mostly)
Diving Deep on Rosh Hashanah
Tashlich is the Rosh Hashanah custom of tossing bread or other small objects into moving water, to throw away our "sins" or our negativity. But today we're going to learn about something different — reverse tashlich, in which we remove our sins from the water. We'll explore the picture book biography, Diving Deep on Rosh Hashanah: Reverse Tashlich for a Better World by Rachelle Burk, which profiles Rabbi Ed Rosenthal and his Jewish scuba-diving ocean cleanup project, Tikkun HaYam, or Repair the Sea. To celebrate the new year, this episode's Share Your Shelf bonus segment is available to everyone , free and paid subscribers alike! You'll hear it at the end of the episode, so just keep listening. Shana tova! NEWS My "Jewish Joy" series continues on Multicultural Kid Blogs. Here's my interview with past Book of Life guest Adam Gidwitz. READ HERE Interesting article from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency: " Feeling excluded in the literary world, Jews are launching their own publishing houses " READ HERE The Jewish Comics Library of Seattle collects works on Jewish themes and by Jewish comics artists. The collection is available to the public at a regularly scheduled pop-up library on the 2nd and 4th Fridays of the month at the Couth Buzzard Bookstore from 11AM-3PM. You can also subscribe to their Substack newsletter, Graven , HERE . CALLS TO ACTION Public libraries are invited to apply for the 2026-2027 cohort of Between Two Worlds , a national program from the Yiddish Book Center that explores Jewish culture and identity through Yiddish literature in translation. Deadline to apply: August 14, 2026. APPLY HERE The Jewish Book Garden's kidlit discussion series, "How Does Our Garden Grow?" will meet on Sunday, August 16 at 1:30PM ET for a Zoom discussion of the picture book Shabbat Is... by A.J. Sass . REGISTER HERE EPISODE SHOW NOTES Episode TRANSCRIPT Buy Diving Deep on Rosh Hashanah Rachelle Burk's website Rabbi Ed's Repair the Sea website The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau trailer and playlist Tikkun Olam: Sign up for Reverse Tashlich and avoid single-use plastic Sample Share Your Shelf bonus segment — free for all subscribers this month! This is what the bonus segments always look like, take a peek. SHARE YOUR SHELF SHOW NOTES From Rabbi Ed's Shelf: Why the Moon Only Glows by Dina Rosenfeld Hairy McClary from Donaldson's Dairy by Lynley Dodd (see Sam Neill read-aloud video ) The Korban Mincha From Rachelle's Shelf: People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks (hear 2008 Book of Life interview ) Toby Belfer Never Had a Christmas Tree by Gloria Teles Pushker And today, one from Heidi's Shelf: The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin (not Jewish, but you'll hear why when you listen to the segment)
