Jewish Family Services to Host Author Talk with Lesléa Newman on Sept. 19

SPRINGFIELD — Jewish Family Services will host a presentation by author Lesléa Newman on Thursday, Sept. 19 from 2 to 4 p.m. Newman will talk about her journey to become a children’s book writer and present and discuss some of her Jewish children’s books, including Gittel’s Journey: An Ellis Island Story. She will also show a short film titled We Are a Country of Immigrants in which she interviews Phyllis Rubin, her godmother and daughter of the real Gittel.

Newman’s other works include Here Is The World: A Year of Jewish Holidays; Ketzel, The Cat Who Composed (winner of the Massachusetts Book Award and the Assoc. of Jewish Libraries Sydney Taylor Award); A Sweet Passover; and Runaway Dreidel. She has received creative-writing fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Massachusetts Artists Foundation. From 2008 to 2010, she served as poet laureate of Northampton. Her newest children’s book, Welcoming Elijah: A Passover Tale with a Tail, will be published in 2020.

The program is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served, and books by the author will be available for purchase. Jewish Family Services’ Community Room is located at 1160 Dickinson St., Springfield (the parking lot is on the Converse Street side).