ERIN CONWAY

This weekend friends and families will be sitting around tables exchanging food and words. Telling stories around tables is a hallmark of Jewish tradition and so is asking questions, a role often played by children. The Passover seder features four such children, one who remains silent because they don’t know what to ask. Sarah Hurwitz reflects on how she, like the fourth child, remained silent, unable to form the questions she needed. Hurwitz compounds this silence with how

Women of the Fairy Tale Resistance details a group of women writers in 17th century Paris, their sisterhood of writing fairy tales, and their legacy as originators erased from history. Harrington organizes her book into chapters that highlight a significant contributor to the salon story workshops and two of their translated works named fairy tales by Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy. Readers will reconnect with familiar characters and conflicts, or discover they never loved this ty

Multicultural Children’s Book Day   Read Your World 2025 (1/30/25) is in its 13th year! Valarie Budayr and Mia Wenjen founded this non-profit children’s literacy initiative; they are two diverse book-loving moms who saw a need to shine the spotlight on all of the multicultural diverse books and authors on the market while also working to get those books into the hands of young readers and educators. Read Your World’s mission is to raise awareness of the need to include kids’

People carry keys, take keys, give keys, give keys back. People lose keys, copy keys, save keys, put keys back. My last ten years hold moments of too much fumbling, clutching, clinging and wishing to find the key I need in my pocket. Keys mean solutions. Keys mean safety. Keys are gratitude and frustration. My keychain has been too empty and somehow too heavy and the same time, because these sensations are illusions, only perceptions, and sometimes misinterpretations. May

Saturday was Purim, but my family dressed up all week. Old costumes. Cobbled together costumes. Hand me down costumes. Almost not a costume. And, the final costume was THE costume for the year. I wrote about Purim and Ester often for blog posts. Feminism. Identity. Both are close to center for me. Ideas of being seen or unseen. Courage to ask to be seen. Anthologies are the best way to find both intersectionality and steps forward towards belonging. They celebrat

Multicultural Children’s Book Day  2024 (1/25/25) is in its 11 th  year! Valarie Budayr and Mia Wenjen founded this non-profit children’s literacy initiative; they are two diverse book-loving moms who saw a need to shine the spotlight on all of the multicultural diverse books and authors on the market while also working to get those books into the hands of young readers and educators. Read Your World’s mission is to raise awareness of the need to include kids’ books celebrati

I plan for a summer story series and we select themes. Beauty. Communication. Wellness. Nature. I attend a young adult social justice workshop and we talk about categories. White. Black. Indigenous. People of Color. The human brain craves patterns. We attempt to trap connecting details to make our understanding easier. What are you? How are you? What do you like? What are you like? Where are you from? Seeing patterns. Making groups. Association equals speed. S

Multicultural Children’s Book Day 2023 (1/26/22) is in its 10th year! This non-profit children’s literacy initiative was founded by Valarie Budayr and Mia Wenjen ; two diverse book-loving moms who saw a need to shine the spotlight on all of the multicultural books and authors on the market while also working to get those books into the hands of young readers and educators. Ten years in, MCBD’s mission is to raise awareness of the ongoing need to include kids’ books that cel

One story for each night. Food. Family. Empathy. Responsibility. Service. Courage. Innovation. Leadership. Hidden Powers: Lise Meitner's Call to Science by Jeannine Atkins Recipe for Disaster by Aimee Lucido Can Sophie Change the World? by Aura Lewis RBG's Brave & Brilliant Women: 33 Jewish Women to Inspire Everyone by Nadine Epstein Lessons in Fusion by Primrose Madayag Knazan Dear Mr. Dickens by Nancy Churnin How to Find What You're Not Looking For by Veera Hir

Kutu: The Tiny Inca Princess/La Ñusta Diminuta is a picture book written by Mariana Llanos and illustrated by Uldarico Sarmiento. Llanos’ book was gifted to me to review for the Multicultural Children’s Book Day 2020 event (1/31/20). Llanos’ bilingual text tells the story of Kutu and her journey to end the drought that was threatening her father’s kingdom. Kutu is born in the time of the Incas. Her mother, la Qoya, worries for her daughter because of Kutu’s size. The qu