Wandering Through The Writer’s Desert:

One question I get frequently as an author is about the evolution of my books. Where did the idea come from? What inspired you to write this story? How did the book go from that idea to a book on a shelf?

I thought today, publication day for my very first picture book, would be a good time to share that journey!

I first began working on the story that became Happy Passover, Edie Rose! back in 2020, that awful pandemic year when, like many of us, I wanted desperately to write stories with happy endings. I titled it simply: Passover Picture Book. For months, I wrote various drafts at the same time I was also working on the manuscript that would become Lost and Found Hanukkah, which—in one of those strange miracles of publishing—is also coming out this year!

Up until that point, I’d been drafting another YA novel as an option book for one of my editors. I’d re-invented the story many times, but it never seemed to please her, no matter how many times I cut it up and pasted it back to together. I was writing pieces of other projects, too – including a middle grade novel mostly that had taken on the time travel element that had originally been part of the never-gonna-work YA book, but which I’d removed many months back to please that editor who was clearly never going to be pleased, a fact that should have been evident by her request that I cut what was initially the main engine of the story.

Let’s just say it was a difficult time. During which two things occurred to me. (Okay, lots of things occurred to me, but these are the two big ones)

The first was that while I’d been working at a bookstore when I wasn’t writing, I had not only developed a huge passion for picture books and fascination with their form, but after reading and reviewing and selling hundreds of them, I really wanted to try writing my own.

The second was the realization that over the years, I’d been aching to write Jewish stories. Stories where I could see myself on the page in some way. I had written Jewish characters in that ill-fated YA novel, as well as a previous YA project that had gotten close to selling but never did. It was more than time to try again.

The pandemic was still raging, and the world felt chaotic, but each time I sat down to write, I felt good. It took many drafts, but from the beginning, there was always a girl named Mia who in some way had to save Passover when something went wrong.

Like Mia and Edie Rose, whose intergenerational friendship became the heart of Happy Passover, Edie Rose,I love Passover. Growing up, our seders were huge events, with family and friends filling our table (sometimes two tables), white table cloths with faded wine stains from seders past, and Haggadahs that often had matzah crumbs inside the pages from the previous year. I could see my childhood self in Mia, reciting the ten plagues and hunting for the Afikomen. Mia also longs for adventure, wondering if she can ever be like her neighbor Edie Rose. Edie is intrepid and fearless and utterly competent at everything from global travel to hosting the best seders in the building. Like Mia, I grew up in the city, and our seders were often around the corner in my aunt and uncle’s apartment on the 7^th floor of a high rise along Lake Michigan in Chicago. I gave Edie their apartment number, 701.

There’s a line in the Reform Shabbat prayer book about the Israelites crossing the Red Sea that became central to crafting Mia and Edie’s Passover story. The only way from here to there, it says, is to join hands and march together. That need for each other, that communal journey as Jews, the reminder that on Passover, we are to imagine that the Exodus is happening to us, now, that we are there marching, there wandering through the desert, there standing at Mt Sinai, has always spoken to me. When Edie can’t complete the seder making and hosting like always, Mia gathers everyone in the building to make seder for Edie and themselves. What ensues is the Edie-like adventure Mia has hoped for, made even more special because of the community that pulls it together.

Plus, there’s a cute scamp of a dog named Mo (who made his way into every single version of this story), and some very delicious macaroons.

And that’s how Happy Passover, Edie Rose came to be. I hope you love Mia and Edie’s story as much as I do!