Richard Michelson, FANNY'S BIG IDEA: How Jewish Book Week Was Born
Totally Booked with Zibby
Zibby Owens
4.5 • 643 Ratings
🗓️ 3 December 2025
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Zibby chats with award-winning author and poet Richard Michelson about his timely and beautifully illustrated new book, FANNY’S BIG IDEA: How Jewish Book Week Was Born. Richard shares the remarkable story of Fanny Goldstein, the pioneering librarian who founded Jewish Book Week and championed cultural understanding through books. He also shares research behind the project, the whirlwind process of bringing the book to publication in time for the 100th anniversary, and why Fanny’s message of empathy and representation matters now more than ever.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, this is Zibi Owens, and you're listening to Totally Booked with Zibby. Formerly, moms don't have time to read books. In my daily show, I interview today's latest, best-selling, buzziest, or underrated authors and story creators, whose work I think is worth your time. As a bookstore owner, publisher, author, and obviously podcaster, I get a comprehensive |
| 0:24.0 | look at everything that's coming out and spend my time curating the best books so you don't |
| 0:29.3 | have to. |
| 0:30.3 | Stay in the know, get insider insights, and connect with guests like I do every single day. |
| 0:36.2 | For more information, go to zibbmedia.com and follow me on Instagram |
| 0:40.2 | at Zibby Owens. Richard Mickelson is the author of Fannie's Big Idea, How Jewish Bookweek, |
| 0:49.2 | was born. Richard's books for children's, teens, and adults have been named among the 10 |
| 0:53.6 | Best of the Year by the New York Times, Publishers Weekly, and the New Yorker, and among the best dozen of the decade by Amazon.com. |
| 1:00.6 | Richard received a National Jewish Book Award and has twice been a finalist, two Sydney Taylor Gold Medals and two Silver from the Association of Jewish Libraries, three Junior Library Guild gold medals, a national parenting |
| 1:12.2 | publication gold medal, and an International Reading Association Teacher's Choice Award. |
| 1:17.2 | A native of Brooklyn, Richard served two terms as Poet Laureate of Northampton, Massachusetts, |
| 1:21.7 | where he hosts Northampton Poetry Radio and owns R. Mickelson Galleries, which represents the original |
| 1:28.8 | artwork of many of the country's major artists and illustrators. Welcome, Richard. Thank you so much |
| 1:33.9 | for coming on Totally Booked to talk about Fannie's Big Idea, how Jewish Book Week was born. Congrats. |
| 1:40.1 | Well, thank you, and it's an absolute pleasure. I love finally e-meeting you because you're doing so many |
| 1:47.1 | wonderful things and for the book world, for the Jewish world. So thank you. Oh, you're so welcome. |
| 1:54.0 | Okay. Read the whole book to my kids. I was like, okay, identify different Jewish objects in here, |
| 1:59.6 | even though they're like way too old for that game. |
| 2:01.1 | But it's fine. They loved it. It was very inspiring. Tell everybody a little bit about not only the book and what it is about, but how you came to write it and why now? |
| 2:12.4 | Well, why now? We'll start there. Because this is the 100th anniversary of Jewish Book Week, now Jewish Book Month. |
| 2:21.7 | It starts November 13th through December 13th. And it was started 100 years ago by Fannie Goldstein, |
| 2:30.5 | who was the first Jewish librarian. She was at the Boston Public Library. And she's an amazing |
... |
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