{"id":376,"date":"2008-01-16T12:52:53","date_gmt":"2008-01-16T12:52:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2008\/01\/a-bit-of-kid-bookage.html"},"modified":"2008-01-16T12:52:53","modified_gmt":"2008-01-16T12:52:53","slug":"a-bit-of-kid-bookage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/01\/a-bit-of-kid-bookage.html","title":{"rendered":"A bit of kid bookage"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yes, we’re still reading – five or six a night – so forgive my lameness in not picking out the best and sharing them with you. This selection, however, finally succeeded in pulling me out of my lethargy.
\nYou Never Know: A Legend of the Lamed-Vavniks<\/a> <\/em>by Francine Prose may sound overwhelming, but it’s not. It’s actually quite simple. (Prose is an accomplished writer (in all genres, it seems) \u00a0and critic whose first published novel,\u00a0Household Saints <\/a><\/em>remains a favorite\u00a0and whose Reading Like a Writer<\/a><\/em> is really excellent. She also cuts an thoroughly intimidating, high-artsy, black-clad figure in person. I spent\u00a0two weeks at a writer’s conference\u00a0on a mountain in Tennessee avoiding her, just because she rather terrified me. Lucky me, the day I ended up at a lunch table with Russell Banks, which was bad enough, but with her, too.\u00a0Fortunately it was her husband (also black-clad and artsy, him being an painter and all) who actually sat next to me, and I wasn’t quite so intimidated…)
\nAnyway.
\nThis book is wonderful – it’s of the angels among us genre, rooted in a Jewish legend. Take it away, PW capsule:<\/p>\n

Jewish tradition inspires this original tale about Schmuel the shoemaker, called Poor Stupid Schmuel by the townsfolk of Plotchnik because of his habit of forgetting to charge his customers. When a 40-day (and 40-night) drought threatens the town, the rabbi and other worthies pray for rain, but only when Schmuel prays does rain indeed fall. The rain continues for another 40 days and nights; once again, only Schmuel’s prayers restore balance. A dream shows the rabbi that Schmuel is one of the 36 righteous men who, according to legend, are born to every generation (lamed-vav is Hebrew for 36). But when the townspeople go to Schmuel’s shop, he has disappeared: a Lamed-vavnik’s identity must remain secret.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, of course….you never know. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yes, we’re still reading – five or six a night – so forgive my lameness in not picking out the best and sharing them with you. This selection, however, finally succeeded in pulling me out of my lethargy. You Never Know: A Legend of the Lamed-Vavniks by Francine Prose may sound overwhelming, but it’s not.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nA bit of kid bookage - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/01\/a-bit-of-kid-bookage.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A bit of kid bookage - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Yes, we’re still reading – five or six a night – so forgive my lameness in not picking out the best and sharing them with you. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}