Cat Galeano joined friends Ruth Horowitz and Robin Heald for a Double Book Birthday Celebration! The two each have new picture books: Ruth’s is The Midnight Mitzvah, illustrated by Jenny Meilhove, and Robin’s is The Light from My Menorah: Celebrating Holidays around the World, illustrated by Andrea Blinick.

Watch the conversation or read the full transcript below. (You can see closed captions by hovering over the bottom of the video and choosing the “CC” icon.)

More about Ruth and Robin:

Ruth’s website: ruthhorowitz.com/
Ruth on Instagram: @RuthHorowitz
Ruth on Mastadon: https://zirk.us/@RuthHorowitz
Ruth on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ruth.horowitz

Robin’s website: robinheald.com/
Robin on Instagram: @robinheald1/
Robin on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/robin.herskowitzheald

Full Transcript:

Cat Galeano:
A big hello to our Highlights Foundation family. We’re so happy to have you here with us this Monday morning. For those that may not know me, I’m Cat Galeano. My pronouns are she, her. I am the social media manager here at the Highlights Foundation, also known as the person resharing your post, liking your posts, with blue and green hearts. I am the human behind the account, so this is me.

I’m also joining you from a very special location today. I am actually at the Highlights Foundation, so I am so excited. I get to host my very first book birthday from campus, so I am very, very excited to be here with Ruth and Robin. And I am also coming to you from the traditional lands of the Lenni Lenape people, and apart from all the fun things I get to do at the Highlights Foundation, one of my greatest joys is getting to host these book birthdays because my greatest joys is getting to host these for our community members, faculty, and friends, because your wins are our wins.

And today I have the honor of celebrating not one, but two picture books. We have The Midnight Mitzvah, words by Ruth Horowitz, art by Jenny Meilhove, and The Light from the Menorah, from My Menorah, Celebrating Holidays Around the World by Robin Heald, art by Andrea Blinick.

We are so excited to welcome you, friends. Thank you for joining us today, but before we dive in, I just want to remind our viewers that when joining in any Highlights Foundation spaces, to do so with no hate, no harm, and no harassment of any kind.

So now let’s get started with our first question. My first question, and my first real question is, why was it so important for both of you to want to do this book birthday celebration together?

Ruth Horowitz:
So I’ll jump in. So Robin and I have been friends since the 1970s when we were in college together, Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. Our paths crossed a bunch of times in the years after that, and then we lost touch with each other for many decades. Until 2021, we found ourselves in a virtual Highlights Symposium for Jewish children’s book professionals, and we said, hey, I know you, haven’t seen a long time. And then we followed up with a private writing retreat at Highlights with our mutual person who just happened to be our mutual friend, Chris Tebbetts, who’s a very good friend of Highlights. I think he’s here today. And we realized that we both had books, it was this, this was in the spring, and we realized we both had books coming out within two weeks of each other this fall. They’re both picture books that we wrote and didn’t illustrate.

They’re both based on Jewish themes, but not strictly for a Jewish audience, and they both feature the night. I mean, it was weird. And there we were at Highlights, brought together by Highlights, and there’s a Jewish concept, which is b’shert, which means “meant to be”, and it just seemed b’shert, meant to be, that we launch our books together, and that we, Robin is in my house right now, but she actually lives in Oregon, and I’m in Rhode Island. And so how could we have a launch together? Well, we’d have to do it online, and what better host than the organization that brought us back together: Highlights. So this is our way to promote our books, support each other, and to honor Highlights and what you’ve done for us separately and together.

Robin Heald:
Yeah, and I love that you mentioned b’shert. I think it’s b’shert that we had to postpone, so we could be in the same space, and we were actually for a bat mitzvah, but it’s so much less lonely to do anything having to do with writing with a friend. You know, writing can be isolating, not great for your social and life and mental health. As Ruth said, we owe the resurgence of our friendship to Highlights and started doing weekly tandem writing. We are both part of Alone Together, which is a virtual writers group. I think Chris Tebbetts is the brainchild of that. It’s significant for me to do this with Ruth because in addition to Judaism, there’s a humor we share that I think has to do with knowing each other way back when. I’m not gonna describe your Halloween costumes, Ruth.

Ruth:
Thank you.

Robin:
I have context, and also during critical life events, I’m thinking of when my, my husband and I were applying to be adoptive parents and you need letters of recommendation, actually. So even back then I was using Ruth’s writing skills and I pulled the letter out from time to time when I wanted to reassure myself that I was indeed fit to be a parent.

As Ruth said, we have the common thread of Judaism in our picture books, they’re set at night. They both have owls in them. And there’s, there’s also kind of a cool balance and contrast. You know, Midnight Mitzvah, I think, offers like this, this solid storyline, unique ethical choices. Menorah answers a question. That’s what kind of propels it non-linearly. And I think, I think it also speaks to our personalities. I think Ruth is one of the clearest thinkers I know. Her, her answers during this interview are going to be very centered, linear. Mine are more pinball…

Cat:
I also just want to thank you both because when I received your email to host this double book birthday, you know, it had been the first, both of you, this is the first of this kind of book birthday because usually it’s either author hosting a book birthday or author illustrator hosting a book birthday, not necessarily two authors hosting together with two separate stories. So I was just like, huh, this is interesting. But then when I heard this backstory, I was like, it just makes perfect sense for them to host with us because Highlights plays such an important story and just ties them together. And I was like, how can we not celebrate with them? And so I thank you so much for, for the honor of doing this for both of you and for allowing us to do this with you.

And I think like someone mentioned in the chat, I quickly saw that, you know, there must be some sort of higher power out there that allowed for us to postpone this in a way that we’re all together at the same time. And both of you are literally under the same roof today that, I don’t know, it feels something magical in the air that it sort of worked out this way. So I thank you both for this special, special moment and for being on campus too.

It really truly aligned in a way that I don’t know, it feels otherworldly. And I can’t thank you enough for that because being at the place that sort of ties you both feels extra, extra special. So it gives me kind of like goosebumps right now. So I feel very, very lucky to be able to chat with you and to celebrate with you. And yeah, and I just hearing your stories and, and yeah, I feel like this is going to be such a great conversation already. I’m already getting like all the goosebumps. So we’re going to get into the next question because I feel like this is already the beginning of an amazing conversation. So my next question is, um, how are you both feeling?

The book is officially out in the world. So talk to us. Like, what does that feel like? As someone who is about to embark on a querying journey, I’m not quite there yet. So personally, I’m a writer who’s going to start the querying journey. Like, how does it feel to be on the other side, where the book is now out in the universe? And how does it feel? Tell us. Talk to us.

Robin:
Do you want to go first?

Ruth:
You want me to go?

Robin:
You go.

Ruth:
Okay. I’ll give my linear answer. So one of this is, Midnight Mitzvah is my eighth children’s book. So I’ve been in this business for a long time. I started in the 90s. And with every book, it’s a little different. I am always, these are all illustrated books. They’re for younger readers. I am never the illustrator. And every time one of the big mysteries is, you know, I entrust my text to an editor, the editor, with more or less consultation from me, it’s more now than it used to be, approaches a illustrator, and I see some sketches, but I don’t really know how it’s gonna look until I see the finished book.

And the difference between the text in my head and the words on the, you know, the pictures on the page is, I don’t know if you can see, it’s all hard, but Jenny Mailhove has just, she has these rich colors and the sort of folklore kind of motifs that I never would have envisioned. And it’s just, it’s just stunning. So that’s one piece. And I want to just, you know, give a shout out to Jenny, who probably watches at some point, she’s in Israel, so her, it’s like 10 o ‘clock at night over there or something.

The other thing is I, it just came out and it’s only beginning to find its way to the public, but last weekend I was in Connecticut at a library, a school library convention, and I had Midnight Mitzvah with me, and I was able to see for the first time, people who didn’t know me and didn’t know me anything, and hadn’t seen drafts, coming and picking up the book, looking at it and thinking about it.

And it was, it was really, it was so gratifying. These weren’t kids, they were, but they were school librarians. So there are people who are going to be taking my book and ushering it to the children, and it’s a book with Jewish content. It’s called The Midnight Mitzvah, the name, the word mitzvah, Hebrew word for “good deed” is right there on the cover. And the, I was seated at with a bunch of of, they had us organized at these tables, and where I was in a section with diverse books there.

I was sitting with somebody who had books that were from a South American tradition, and there was somebody who had books that were, I think, in Hindi and English bilingual. And so they were putting this book that said, had this Hebrew word “mitzvah,” as this is a way to have a diverse set of voices. The librarians who were not Jewish, which is most of the people there, would look at it and say, oh, this is so interesting. This is so moving. I love the message. I love the idea of including this in my library.

And then the librarians who were Jewish would come up to me and tell me right away, I’m Jewish and I’m so happy to see this representation in this book and to see this book which is carrying this value. So it kind of, you know, it’s always a little bit nerve-wracking. A book comes out, how’s it going to be received? I think it’s a great idea. My editor loved it, but who knows? But to see people who work with books and children having these different kinds of positive responses was, made me want to go out and do a lot more of that, so I’ll tell you that. So that was great.

Robin:
So mine is definitely takes place during Hanukkah, and as we get closer to Hanukkah, things are ramping up. December is going to be kind of a busy month, and so I’ve got some, some readings at temples, scheduled libraries. I will also give a shout out to my to my illustrator. I had something so totally different in mind. When I wrote it, I thought it would be an urban setting. I thought, you know, sidewalks and it’s more like a little Swiss village.

I did not exactly know how the stream of light would sail through outer space and over valleys, and what I love is the layered look that she gives it, and it just goes from beginning until end, and it’s such a through line.

The linear aspect of it is really in the light. The art direction, I think, of Pajama Press is exquisite, and there are little varnish spots around, so I’ve never met any of my illustrators. I have seven picture books out but three are self-published and I did choose my illustrator for that project and had a lot of contact with her but it’s always really a surprise and I’ve always been really pleased at the choices the editor has made.

I wrote a book about adoption and I pictured a very kind of soft realism and the editors said “no it’s got to be large and very child friendly and bold colors” because the subject matter is kind of heavy; it’s about open adoption.

Yeah, the surprise aspect. I will also add that some there’s something a little anti-climactic. It’s such a long process to get out there. And so when you finally receive it, it rejuvenates your interest in the project but I was starting the book in 2019 and then finally having it come to fruition is it’s a long process and so you kind of forget about it you move on to other things and then suddenly it’s here and “oh my god I’ve got I’ve got the marketing.”

Ruth:
It’s, it’s true I had the first book that I ever sold took seven years to get published I mean this is seven years from when I signed the contract until it was a physical book not seven years I’ve had those things too but I came home I had another book came out in the meantime and I came home to my house one day and there was a package on my doorstep this was in the days before email on the internet. I said what’s that package and I and it was my um my author copies of of my, my book that I had written before the book that I’d come back and I said oh yeah I remember this book. Huh here it is.

Cat:
Oh my god…so my next question for you is both your stories celebrate such wholesome and joyous things from doing a good deed for a neighbor to the different holidays that make up this later part of the year can you talk about why these topics were the ones you wanted to explore in your stories?

Robin:
Hmm. Uh. Do you want me to start here?

Ruth:
Unless you want me to go. I don’t want to always have to go first, but I’m happy to…

Robin:
Um, I wrote Light for My Menorah in 2019 when the news really included children being separated from their, their parents at the southern border. Um, I’m not a poet but the, the text emerged stylistically like poetry and I wanted to write about unity, inclusiveness. Um, I think I wrote the text in about an hour, and when it was acquired, there were very few edits. That has never happened. I had, my book on adoption took, I think, 62 tries, you know, my agent persisted with it. So that has never happened before, but I definitely wanted to give children a sense of curiosity and inclusion about different cultures around the world who are celebrating festivals of light and the illumination that brings to everybody,

Ruth:
It’s such a beautiful book. It really is. It’s such a beautiful message.

Cat:
It really is, like, spoiler alert, I got to read an early copy. And, like, the actual literal light that just, like, feeds through every single page is just such a beautiful detail. Like I can’t tell you how gorgeous that illustration detail is that it just goes through every page from the front cover to all the way even to the back. Just like a brilliant idea, like everything, like the different holidays and just, it was just a beautiful concept of the different holidays and holidays that I wasn’t even too familiar with.

So I was like, this is, you’re also learning. So I love that.

Ruth:
So in my case, 2019, I was at, I know that I’m sort of anticipating another question you might be asking, but I was at, I came to Highlights for the first time to campus and I was there as part of a Symposium for Jewish children’s writers and I came away from that. I went kind of reluctantly. My, my agent was, was organizing it and she asked me to come and help out. And I hadn’t been, I’m Jewish and I’d written an adult book with a lot of Jewish content, but I hadn’t written any kid’s books with Jewish content and I thought, well, this isn’t my thing, but I went because, you know, I like my agent and she asked.

And one of the things I came away with was this challenge to, and sort of this inspiration that I could look to my, my Jewish roots as a, as a source of inspiration. And around that same time, I was, I was reading, there’s, there’s a 2000 year old book of Jewish laws and stories called the Talmud, which if you read a page a day, it takes seven and a half years. And, and there are people who, who are reading the page a day, all the same page. And I started doing that. I lasted about a year and a half and then I, and then I gave up, but I was reading it to learn about the Talmud, but I was also secretly looking for story ideas. Because there’s a lot of magic, and demons, and folklore stories sort of woven in between. And I came across this story of this rabbi who likes to give charity at night so as not to embarrass the recipients.

The problem is that the night belongs to the demons. And he’s confronted by the king of the demons who tells him that he’s trespassing. And he has to argue his way out of it to complete his errand. And I thought, that’s a really cool story. How can I make that work for kids in a picture book? How can I, what do I do with the demon? How do I portray that the person who’s receiving charity is embarrassed? There are like a lot of sort of difficult topics I thought were important, but also it had to be sort of sensitive.

And how are you going to make it accessible to kids? So I had a lot of different tries. And I came up with the idea that I made Rabbi Hanina Bar Pappa into Hanina Chipmunk who likes to share the acorn she gathers with her forest friends, and Matilda Squirrel, who is based on my grandmother, may her memory be for a blessing, used to be able to get around a lot, but she’s gotten older, but she won’t admit that she needs help.

And so Hanina has to find a way to help her where she won’t reject the gift, so she decides to go out at night. The problem is that Hanina is a chipmunk who are diurnal day creatures, and she’s going out at night, and she’s confronted by the great horned owl. That’s my demon. I don’t think it’s, you know, it’s a picture book. It works out okay. But that was my inspiration, and besides it, I think it was just a cool story: demon, the night, giving secretly.

I also just really like the message behind the story, which is about helping someone in a way that preserves their dignity, you know, being respectful of the person who you are helping, and also doing the right thing because it’s the right thing to do, and not even if nobody ever knows, and especially if nobody ever knows, because there’s so much doing good deeds in order to put your name on a building or in order to get a prize, or in order to take applause, and you don’t see a lot of heroes in children’s literature who are just doing it because it’s the right thing, or making the case that this, you know, you should do things without; for the good of it.

Robin:
And I want to jump in here. Former educator ran a preschool for a number of years, and the reason I think Ruth’s book gives such a meaningful message is the phrase “good job” is just automatic these days it’s, it encourages children, I think, to do something for praise or reward and certainly praise and reward have their place when a child is trying to overcome a difficult obstacle. But overused, it comes at such a dear price it really takes away a child’s natural altruism. In, in the preschool I would encourage my teachers and myself to not say “good job” not to even comment on a work of art “that’s beautiful”–that’s another catch phrase because then the child is looking outward and the creative center becomes… so I think I get very passionate talking about this.

Ruth:
I want to also point out that giving in secret is an important Jewish value, but as I point out, I have author notes at the back, and it’s also very central to Islam. The concept of Sadaqah, which is a form of charity and the best Sadaqah is anonymous, and also in Orthodox Christianity, there’s a tradition of giving in secret for the same reason. So it’s a value that isn’t, you don’t see a lot, bu …

Cat:
It is shared by others.

Ruth:
It is shared by lots of traditions.

Cat:
Robin, did you want to add anything?

Robin:
Well, just, if you don’t interfere with a child’s process, I used to do a lot of story dictation at the preschool, you miss, and it’s tempting to edit as you go along and doing plays with kids, which was a big focus of my school, um, you don’t want to lead them because you miss out on their own, how their, their own minds are being associated. It’s like there was a boy who blinked, and every time he blinked, he could smell tears and wild stuff that you’d like to plagiarize.

Cat:
I’m gonna jump into our sadly last question, which is, what do you hope kids will take away from your books?

Ruth:
I think I’ve kind of already covered that. I mean, I always want to tell a good story, and I think I, you know, that’s that’s the main thing. I don’t I don’t write a book in order to teach a lesson. This is sounding a little bit preachy this conversation. I really hope that my book doesn’t come off as preachy but on the other hand, I also want them to come away with this idea of giving without expecting to get a reward helping and helping kindly.

Cat:
Yeah, I don’t think that’s preachy at all I think I think it’s important to be able to know that you can help and not to expect anything. That it’s okay to want to help somebody if they’re in need and, and that’s okay And you don’t need to get anything in return and simply helping someone because you want to and I think that’s important I think that’s what your book delivered so beautifully, that this character that was Matilda you know was clearly was not looking for any help and Hanina was so willing to give it and with needing nothing in return and just went and did the thing and left the acorns. I mean, not to spoil alert too much, but, and I think that was such beautifully, just beautifully delivered. And I think you did such a lovely job with that. And I don’t think that’s preachy at all. I think it’s, it’s a beautiful reminder that helping people is important. And I think sometimes we forget that. And I think it makes, it’s, it’s nice to remember that helping someone in need, whether it’s something small or big, makes us feel good too. So it’s okay to do that.

Robin:
And I just hope that kids will love the journey of the menorah’s light, you know, traveling into outer space, over oceans, and that where the light takes them or is going to make them curious about celebrations of light around the world.

Ruth:
I want to add about Robin’s book. I have a copy, actually, the copy that Robin’s showing is my copy, which you need to sign for me by the way, but it was, it was, here and my grandchildren, my three year old grandson was really, really into it.

And, you know, his, his mom read it to him and then he went back over it and he was reading again and he was following the light on the page and then finding every time you see the menorah, he was finding it. And then he got up and he came into my dining room here where I’ve got the menorah and he was like showing his mom, see, there’s menorah on the page and there’s the menorah here. And it was, it was so cool and so lovely to, to watch this, you know, interacting with the book and absorbing it and seeing it, you know, sort of in real life and making a connection.

Robin:
It’s like a Where’s Waldo with a Jewish twist.

Ruth:
That’s right. That’s right.

Cat:
That’s a perfect way to market it. Um. is there anything else you’d both like to add before we wrap up?

Robin:
I just wanted to give another shout out to Highlights. I think, you know, Highlights got me my first book contract. It was in 2010 or 2011 that the very first Jewish Writers’ Gathering came about. There were a dozen of us, and it was a sharing rather than instructive. Jane Yolen was a part of it. And I shared a book about baking challah with my preschool called Pat Role Pull. There was an editor from Hachai Publishing who said, would you be able to revise it? And I went home to my cabin at Highlights, made great use of the snacks, pulled an all-nighter, handed to her just as she was leaving, and she acquired it.

Cat:
Oh wow.

Robin:
Highlights that. And I just want to give a shout out to the many workshops I’ve taken at Highlights. Chris Tebbetts and Elise Broach’s Getting Your Middle Grade Novel Unstuck. Chris and Susan Aronson’s just Do It. Eileen Robinson and Harold Underdown’s Novel Revision workshop. Dismantling the Kaleidoscope. It’s endless. I’m addicted to it, so thank you to Highlights.

Cat:
Great ones you’ve mentioned.

Robin:
Yeah, I also want to say, for anybody who’s considering a Highlights workshop, if you enlist the help of Rona Sherdan, who’s an Ambassador, she’s wonderful to speak with.

Cat:
Well, we’ll definitely make sure–Rona’s on our marketing team–so I will make sure she knows this as soon as we get off this call. Thank you, Robin, for all that love. We truly, truly appreciate all that love.

Ruth:
Yeah, I was actually, I was also going to give a shout out to Highlights, although my relationship with Highlights isn’t nearly as extensive as Robin’s, but what happened when I went to that first 2019 symposium. One thing was I had this inspiration to write Jewish content. Another thing was that I met just a bunch of wonderful fellow writers, illustrators, publishing professionals, who have many of whom are, you know, became my dear friends, including Lisa Rosinsky, who is also happens to be an editor at Barefoot Books, and guess what?

She’s the person who, she was my editor for Midnight Mitzvah. It was just such a joy to have this whole connection with her. I’ve never had that with an editor, editor before. And the third thing that happened was I fell in love with Highlights. I’ve been back many times, I haven’t been to workshops, I’ve been to personal retreats, I’ve been with my critique group. I’ve been on my own. I went to this, this little group thing with Robin and Chris. But it’s, I just, I so appreciate and love the, the spirit of the place and the, the culture of it and all that you do to, to raise up writers and establish people who are, who are on their way up or just stepping in.

And it’s just my favorite place to go and get some work done. So thank you for, thank you for being there. Thank you for being you.

Cat:
Well, I always like to tell people, I’m like, I don’t just work for Highlights. I also like to consider myself one of their biggest fans, too. So I always love to hear people talk about so highly of it because I feel that way too. So thank you so much for all those lovely, lovely words. I will make sure George watches this and the whole video because, you know, he needs to make sure he watches this one. I will march down to the office and tell him to watch today’s book birthday. Thank you both so much for your time.

Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Oh, thank you. Thank you for these stories that make their way out into the world. They are so important. Thank you for the universe for wildly aligning all of us to be where we are today for both of you to be together, for me to be at Highlights.

And congratulations again. And for those that may want to order a copy, you can always purchase at our virtual bookshop powered by bookshop.org. But please, please, please let me know if you want to mention right now which bookstores you work with. If you don’t have that information, you could just email me and we’ll make sure to put it in the blog. And yeah, thank you. I can’t thank you enough, Robin. Thank you, Ruth.

Thank you, everyone, for tuning in. It was quite a popular room today. I saw lots of people popping in and out. I know we had like I said, it was 40 minutes today, so it flew by. Thank you for tuning in, everyone. Thank you for spending this morning with us.

And we hope you have a wonderful week and please be well.

Ruth:
Thank you so much, Cat. Bye. See you soon, Robin. Bye.