A nourishing tale

Jewish children’s book creator Joan Stuchner believes in humor and morals for younger readers.

By ARTHUR WOLAK
Joan Stuchner (photo credit: ARTHUR WOLAK)
Joan Stuchner
(photo credit: ARTHUR WOLAK)
The new children’s book Bagels Come Home!, about a lovable dog named Bagels, is the latest title from the pen of children’s book author Joan Betty Stuchner.
The award-winning Canadian writer – a native of Leeds, England, who in the mid-’60s immigrated at age 18 to Vancouver, Canada – traces her writing interests to an inner desire to tell stories. Stuchner relates, “I always told myself stories; there’s a story in everything. Stories pop into my head seemingly out of nowhere, or because of a word, or a person, or perhaps an article or headline.”
Stuchner traces the idea for Bagels Come Home! to her late mother-in-law’s sheltie, who she notes “was not only an escape artist, but totally uncontrollable, disobedient and ended up being expelled from puppy preschool.” She began making up stories based on his antics, but added other influences, seeing Bagels emerge as a mix of sheltie, whippet and Jack Russell terrier.
As Stuchner has been telling stories since childhood, it is no surprise that she became a writer. While publishing success did not happen instantly, it developed concurrently with other interests.
After graduating from the University of British Columbia with degrees in English and teaching, Stuchner worked as a full-time university library assistant, Hebrew school teacher and occasional stage performer in community theater productions, but she has always been a storyteller. Sharing stories, it seems, has been a constant motivator for her.
Growing up in Leeds, Stuchner wanted to act, which she believes is “another side of the storytelling process.” She began writing poetry at 11 years of age. “Naturally, when I told my parents that I thought I might become a poet, they didn’t think there was much of a living to be made at that.”
Composing “at least one fairy tale as a child,” she recalls, “it was funny, so writing humor was clearly in the cards.”
Interacting with children also had a strong influence. “I started writing stories for my students at the synagogue school where I teach,” Stuchner explains. “At that time I wanted to teach [Jewish] festivals and values but use humor to do so. I also wrote skits for the kids all the time – and still do.”
While Stuchner dabbles in adult fiction – particularly an almost- finished mystery novel and short humor columns for small newspapers, even penning the book and lyrics for a musical called Hanukkah in Chelm, produced in Vancouver two years in a row – children garner most of her attention. “When I began writing stories, they just seemed to be children’s stories.
“I know that many writers tell you to imagine you are writing for a specific child, but I always want to write for both myself and everyone else, regardless of age.” She hopes adults enjoy her illustrated children’s books as much as children do.
Her works have been inspired by Jewish history and culture.
Stuchner wrote The Kugel Valley Klezmer Band (later republished in softcover as Shira’s Hanukka Gift), a story about a 10-year-old girl who dreams of playing the fiddle in her father’s klezmer band, capturing life in a transplanted Eastern European shtetl.
In Honey Cake Stuchner takes readers to 1943 Copenhagen under Nazi occupation, featuring the exploits of a young Jewish boy, David Nathan, and his family, including a sister who joins the Resistance and a father trying to keep his bakery running.
Random House is about to reissue the story under the new title, A Time To Be Brave.
An original folktale set in Chelm, Can Hens Give Milk? revolves around the antics of farmers, Schlomo and Rivka, who want to provide fresh milk and cheese for their children. Believing that cows give milk because they eat grass, Schlomo has his daughter Tova involved in a scheme to place their hens on the same diet, with certain futile results, only to see Schlomo trading hens for a goat, with another foolish plan in his mind.
Stuchner’s other children’s books follow different characters beyond the Jewish sphere, including Sadie the Ballerina, a story about a young girl’s ambition to become a graceful dancer, and Josephine’s Dream, a picture-book biography chronicling the life of 20th-century singer and dancer Josephine Baker.
Such stories have brought Stuchner writing accolades and awards.
Although artists are responsible for illustrating her works, in Bagels Come Home! Stuchner added Jewish references to the illustrations.
As a result, she says, “You’ll see a couple of Hebrew words and a few Jewish symbols.”
Growing up in postwar Leeds, which she describes as not being particularly multicultural in the 1950s but having “a large Jewish community,” she recalls winter Friday afternoons being a time when Jewish kids could go home a little earlier from school because of Shabbat. However, she cannot remember reading Jewish children’s books. “Stories, yes, but not books.”
She concedes, “I think a little of my Jewish family’s home life might have influenced some stories. We did a lot of things together as a family, and celebrated [Jewish] festivals with my aunt, uncle and cousin, and our Jewish friends. But I think all experiences writers have will creep into their stories in some way.”
“A story is to entertain,” Stuchner believes. “I don’t like the word ‘message,’ but at the same time values just seem to automatically get woven into stories.” Accordingly, in Bagels Come Home!, a family goes to a shelter and saves an energetic dog, who has a particular talent for getting into mischief.
Caring for others and a sense of community permeates Stuchner’s stories. “When I read one of my own books I always feel good when I can laugh out loud, but at the same time I can also be touched by a line I’ve written, so I hope others feel that way, too.”
With so many children entertained by her works, Stuchner reveals, “There should be two more books of Bagels’s adventures coming in 2015.”
There is always room on the bookshelf for more good stories.