We are so excited to have Alan Silberberg join us today to share information about Jewish Holiday Picture Books!
Alan is the author and illustrator of three Jewish holiday picture books; MEET THE LATKES, MEET THE MATZAH and MEET THE HAMANTASHEN (Viking/ Penguin Random House). His newest book, LATKES FIRST HANUKKAH is a simple, silly board book for the tiniest readers who are ready to laugh and learn. Up next is P IS FOR PASTRAMI, an ABC board book of Jewish foods coming out in February, 2024.
I am the author/illustrator behind four Jewish holiday books published by Viking/Penguin Random House. MEET THE LATKES was my first book, and to be honest, it is the one that happened by accident. Let me explain:
I had already published three middle grade novels and even though I had been cartooning and drawing for decades, never thought about picture books. I did however love to make little silly animations for fun and for my online book brand. MEET THE LATKES began as an animated holiday card that I would send out every December.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFHuBa0-C3I
After receiving this goofy greeting for a few holiday seasons, it was my agent Jill Grinberg who suggested there was a picture book with my potato pancake family. I figured why not – and then set out to write a Hanukkah book based on my latkes. The only problem was, no editor was interested – perhaps because in my initial draft I had a Latke family hosting a Latke Party, which meant it was more of a cannibal story than a celebration of light.
But there was one editor, Leila Sales at Viking, who saw beyond my initial odd take and thought there was a funny and charming holiday story to be told with my latkes. Thanks to her insight, we shaped my first attempt into a warm, funny book that actually tells the Hanukkah story (without eating any latkes). MEET THE LATKES was published in 2018.
The book got great reviews and kids and families laughed along with Grandpa Latke, who insists on telling a wrong version of the Hanukkah story only to be corrected by the “latke” family dog named Applesauce. It’s funny and warm and I loved making it.
And it hit me: MEET THE LATKES was a format. Anthropomorphic Jewish food who tell a Jewish Holiday story. I started thinking about Passover and knew the title would be MEET THE MATZAH. But I didn’t want to create another “family” story and came up with the idea of using the story of the Jewish people’s persecution under the Pharoah and turning it into a “school bully story”. Again, I used the approach of telling the “wrong” story. In a school filled with bread characters, the antagonist is Loaf, a sourdough who is such a bully he insists he knows the Passover story better than the student assigned to tell it; my hero, a piece of matzah named Alfie Koman. (note: at a Passover seder, one ritual is to break a matzah in half and then hide it for the kids to find later – this matzah is called the AFIKOMAN.) Thanks to Alfie Koman finally standing up for himself and correcting the bully, MEET THE MATZAH also uses a mis told version of the holiday story to tell the actual one.
I followed up with the 3rd book in the series, MEET THE HAMENTASCHEN, which tells the story of Purim using the same mis told story format – but instead of a family or a school setting I created 3 Detectives, who are hamentaschen (triangle-shaped Purim pastries). The trio is hired to solve a problem at the Purim Party and based on being bungling sleuths, they get the clues all wrong and it is up to the characters of the Purim play to set the story straight.
Three holidays; three foods; three stories told wrong and then corrected.
My new holiday book. LATKE’S FIRST HANUKKAH grew out of my desire to make a book for younger kids. The bright and silly story uses anthropomorphic holiday symbols in a counting book format with the eight nights of Hanukkah. Each turn of the page is a new night for Latke to celebrate – with new Hanukkah characters to count.
I never intended to be “the funny Jewish food Holiday book” guy – but am thankful to the readers and educators and families who have embraced my way of celebrating Jewish stories.