Visit Alyson Beecher on Wednesdays for Non-Fiction Picture Books at Kidlit Frenzy -- hashtag #nfpb2020! Thanks to her hosting and sharing and those who add their posts, you can discover and celebrate terrific nonfiction picture books! No one, I think, starts out to be a hero, but sometimes it happens. An event so strong that one leaps into the start, and the actions become heroic. The two men in these biographies has different beginnings, yet it really all came to doing what was right.
"Kum aher. Sit Down, I want to tell you a story!" Thus started the story told to Aaron Lansky by his grandmother, who had carefully packed her suitcase for her voyage to America. Upon arrival, her older brother greeted her and threw that suitcase into the Hudson River. Aaron did not forget, studied Jewish history in college and learned Yiddish because so much of that history was written in that language. His goals were about to change! He visited his rabbi and noticed a bunch of books in a basket, books written in Yiddish! They were about to be buried, no longer useful. Aaron took them home, beginning his journey for more and more. I liked that Macy has included Yiddish words and phrases throughout the story.
Sue Macy tells the story of this mensch, now an English word from the Yiddish mentsh, meaning a 'person of good character'. There are other words that have move into English, found on a double-page spread in the book, words like bagel, schlep, and klutz. But Aaron wanted the history, the stories, the books! He put the word out, soon had so many books in his apartment in Montreal that he feared the floor would collapse. He said that because Jewish people were really homeless until the creation of Israel, these books were the "portable" homeland of the Jewish people". That was the start, but eventually, with so many books collected, he founded the Yiddish Book Center, collecting always, earning acclamations. This center is digitized, with free downloads, and conducts educational programs. In her illustrator's note, Stacy Innerst writes that she follows the path of Marc Chagall, who was a poor Jewish boy born in Russia. She shows a faded style as if it's an old story, only found in people's memories and in books. There is an afterword by Aaron Lansky, notes from Sue Macy and Innerst, a glossary of Yiddish words, and added information.