jewish kids books should be weirder

a how-to guide

There’s a game I like to play. That game is called “How quickly can this book idea by rejected by PJ Library.”

If you don’t know, PJ Library is an organization that sends millions of free books to families with young kids. Every Jewish parent I know has stacks of them. In America, they are almost synonymous with Jewish children’s literature.

(Now, before you say it, this is not a post about PJ Library being bad. I’ve heard all the critiques, I’ve interviewed their director of content in a pretty open conversation, and at the end of the day I just can’t get worked up about free products that are mostly intended for other people and other families. For some families these books represent a real connection to tradition, and it’s great that someone is serving that market.)

Still, PJ Library’s overwhelming dominance in the Jewish book market—and the heavy hand of nonprofit funding in the Jewish publishing market overall—means that people sometimes forget that it’s possible to make books for kids that are two things:

• weird, or at least unexpected

• the product of no more than two creative voices (an author and an illustrator)

All the really good kids books do this. Maurice Sendak. Dr. Seuss. Maira Kalman (no relation). Mo Willems. Robert Munch. Sandra Boynton. These are creative products imbued by personality because you feel like you are reading the words and seeing the images of a person, not the output of a process.

This requires not just great artists, but a publishing process that won’t smush them. The image below, for example, comes from a prayerbook for kids published by Ktav, a well-loved Jewish press. You’d never know it, but this prayerbook was illustrated by none other than…

…Arnold Lobel, the renowned author/illustrator of the Frog and Toad book series, which is both excellent in its own right and also important because it is one of the earliest kids book with queer-coded characters. Ktav was working with one of the best kids book illustrators of the 20th century but the project didn’t allow the book to become anything close to iconic.

So, what would it take to make kids books weirder?

I write kids lit myself—stay tuned for something coming out this Passover, and more is on the way—so I’m going to be a little circumspect. That being said, if you are interested in writing a kids book—and you should totally make an attempt, and share it with me if it’s good!—here are some things to try:

• Write in a register that kids will not expect. That could be simpler or more complicated. The former makes kids feel smarter, the latter can be funny if it’s done right.

• Write a book where kids break all the rules and get away with it, or where adults act very oddly (within age appropriate limits). Everyone likes stories about the Natural Order of Things being overturned.

• Magical realism is such an incredible mode of writing, yet few Jewish kids books employ it unless they’re telling boring miracle stories. It is perhaps closest to the way that children actually view the world.

• It’s definitely possible to overdo it, but there aren’t enough Jewish kids books that take advantage of the inherent humor of farts. Someone should look into that.

• Write books that require people to interact with them in non-traditional ways. Make the reader shout, or throw the book in the air, or sing, or whatever.

• Don’t be afraid to put scary things in your books.

• Don’t underestimate the power of building rhythm and repetition.

• Let the meaning of your story be extremely ambiguous.

• If you have a choice between technically perfect illustrations and weird illustrations, choose weird very time.

• Try telling your story from the perspective of an inanimate object.

• Be actually funny. Not humorous—funny! Funny enough to make the adult reader laugh. Funny enough to seem slightly insane.

Watch this space for some examples of how I’ve tried to do these things. In the meantime, I want to read your best kids book ideas, send them my way please.