Apples & Honey Press

Apples & Honey Press is honored and delighted to have four titles make the list of the 2023 Edition of Bank Street College of Education’s “Best Children’s Books of the Year”!

This list “includes more than 600 titles chosen by the Children’s Book Committee as the best of the best published in 2022.” Apples & Honey Press titles were featured in four different categories between two age lists.

Family/School/Community, ages 5-9

Apples & Honey Press has four new children's stories coming out this month.

Picture Books

Daddy, Can You Make Me Tall? 

By Rona Novick, PhD, illustrated by Ana Sebastian

Shabbat is coming! I can't reach my shirt. Daddy, can you make me tall?

I can't

One powerful voice can effect powerful change.

An example of that truth is the story of Rose Schneiderman, a young Jewish immigrant teen who began speaking out for better working conditions in the early 20th century.

She was just thirteen years old, working in a cap factory in New York City when she noticed women workers earned much less than men and the factory wasn't safe or healthy for the workers. Rose helped organize 20,000 women to walk off the job, leaving factories all over the city empty and still. Following the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in 1911, Rose's speech at the Metropolitan Opera House galvanized support for better working conditions. The International Ladies Garment Workers Union was born.

In 1934 young Hank Greenberg had his dream job--playing first base for the Detroit Tigers. 

Unlike some other Jewish baseball players of that time, Hank had not changed his name to disguise his Jewishness--he was not going to pretend he was something he wasn't. But there were many people who did not want to see a Jewish baseball player on the field. They booed and jeered and called him names, and most of his teammates were just standing by and letting it happen.

But Hank knew what he liked - baseball. So he played his best, kept quiet, and let his batting average speak for him instead.

Hank on First: How Hank Greenberg Became a Star On and Off the Field, the newly published book by Stephen Krensky and illustrated by Alette Straathof, tells the story of

"With overtones of Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are (1963), this read-aloud brings a creative element to the holiday.  . . . Marine fun and fantasy make for a magical Passover celebration." -Kirkus Reviews

In Under the Sea Seder, by Ann D. Koffsky, Miri is having trouble focusing during her family's Passover seder. Her parents would like her to sit quietly and listen, but she just CAN'T. 

So Miri slips under the table where her spirited imagination can be free, and with her cat at her side imagines leading her own seder, under the sea, with some friendly, very colorful sea monsters as her guests. 

Miri sings the Four Questions and whirls and twirls in celebration with her new marine friends. And soon it is time to dance and sing above the

This year for Passover, Matilda's grandmother invites her to help make the matzah ball soup—a dish that’s essential to Jewish cuisine, especially for holiday meals.

Matilda Makes Matzah Balls, by Rhonda Cohen and illustrated by Francesca Galmozzi, tells the story of Matilda, who has always loved watching her grandmother make soup. Now she wants to try out some of her own ideas. Adding lemon and dill to the matzah balls seems like a great idea. But making one GIANT matzah ball is a giant mistake.

Yet Bubbe is encouraging. "The best part of experimenting is you can always try again," she tells Matilda. 

And so the grandmother-granddaughter cooking team continues the kitchen experiments, with some unusual (and unusually delicious!) results.

Matilda’s enthusiasm and her grandmother’s uncondi

Purim is just around the corner. 

Two new stories are coming out February 7 to entertain and inspire children this holiday.

Purr-im Time!

By Jenna Waldman, illustrated by Erica Chen

In this happy, rhyming romp a group of exuberant kittens get into some feline mischief as they celebrate Purim and explain the holiday to young children.

"A welcome addition for secular and religious collections alike." --School Library Journal

"Filled with movement and joy" --Kirkus Reviews

The Jewish Book Council today named Salt & Honey and Alone Together on Dan Street as finalists in the 72nd National Jewish Book Awards.

Salt & Honey: Jewish Teens on Feminism, Creativity, & Tradition, edited by Elizabeth Mandel, Emanuelle Sippy, Maya Savin Miller, and Michele Hirsch, with a foreword by Molly Tolsky of Hey Alma and a Reader's

A young girl named Debbie moves with her parents across the country, far from her close-knit large extended family. She feels unmoored in the new city, searching for connection, until she finally finds it at a Jewish sleepaway camp. There she finds community and music that stirs her soul. She learns to play guitar - and in turn, makes history.

A Place to Belong, by Deborah Lakritz and illustrated by Julia Castaño, tells the story of Debbie Friedman, and how her quest to connect with her feelings and tradition led her to become one of the most famous Jewish musicians of our time. 

Her songs "married traditional Jewish texts to contemporary folk-infused melodies, and is credited with helping give ancient liturgy broad appeal to late-20th-century worshippers,"

Why do we keep telling the story of our people from one generation to the next?

Each time we retell stories from the Bible, we learn something about ourselves and our relationships. These stories also encourage critical thinking skills in our students and help them understand important Jewish values that continue to guide us today.

There are many Bible resources that help children explore the deeper meaning and shape how they live that learning in the world.

For example, if the curriculum is focused on early Torah stories, you can use a core text such as The Explorer’s Bible or Teach Me Torah. Then engage new perspectives by layering in other elements, like a storybook