R ochel Burstyn is at it again. The Southfield mother-of-eight, occasional Jewish News humor col- umnist and author of children’s books published two new picture books last fall and two more in late February. Almost all of her books have focused on Orthodox charac- ters, reflecting Burstyn’s own family and communal life. One new offering, a picture book called Benny the Bus Gets the Job Done (Israel Book Shop publications) is “what you get if you mix The Little Engine That Could with Thomas the Tank Engine and throw in a yarmulke, ” she said. The other, The Surprise Carnival and Other Stories (Judaica Press), includes mostly light- hearted stories designed to make kids laugh out loud — “or at least to groan and think, ‘How corny!’ because those reactions are fun, too, ” she said. One of the books published in November, Chaim’s Juicy Mistake, originated with an idea from Burstyn’s friend Miriam Amzalak of Oak Park. The idea is to remind readers not only that everyone makes mistakes but to provide some guidance for caregivers on how to respond when kids screw up (take deep breaths, focus on solutions, pray and so on). She also published Out of Mind, which was originally serialized in The Circle, a magazine for Orthodox children. It’s about a girl in Detroit and a girl in Australia who share a “mind connection” despite having never met. “I’m from Australia and, of course, live here, so it’s kind of handy when I write about places I don’t need to do any major research for, ” she said. Burstyn’s father, Nathan Greenwald, grew up in Oak Park, and she came to Michigan in 1998 to stay with her grandparents, Lillian and Arthur Greenwald of Oak Park, and get to know her local family. “I ended up meeting and marry- ing my husband (Jaron), and have been here ever since, ” she said. The Burstyns’ children range in age from 3 to 20. The eldest, Bentzi, joined the Israel Defense Forces in December. A second son, Yoni, 19, is studying at a yeshivah in Israel. Their three daughters, Raizel, Atara and Zahava, attend Yeshiva Beth Yehudah’s Bais Yaakov School for Girls in Oak Park, and her youngest son, Azriel, 3 is in a local playgroup. Burstyn has been homeschooling sons Avi, 15, and Binyomin, 12, since September 2019, “so we were 10 steps ahead of everyone else when schools shut in March, ” she said. Burstyn says she considers The Surprise Carnival to be her “COVID book. ” “I found a lot of comfort in writing The Surprise Carnival and focusing on some- thing creative and fun. I worked on it for about three months in total, sometimes waking up at 4 a.m. to work on it until my kids woke up.” She said working on the book served as a distraction and gave her a sense of purpose during a “restless, anxiety-filled time. ” Burstyn’s books are available from ama- zon.com and locally at Borenstein’s and Spitzer’s. Rochel Burstyn 34 | MARCH 4 • 2021 Retired Librarian Publishes Kids’ Book About Shavuot BARBARA LEWIS CONTRIBUTING WRITER Sherry Wasserman didn’t retire from librarianship when she left her posi- tion as head of adult services at the Oak Park Public Library in 1997 after 29 years. She simply moved to a volunteer position reorganizing the library at Congregation B’nai Moshe in West Bloomfield, where she has been a longtime member. Wasserman, 75, of Huntington Woods, said she first thought about doing such a book about 20 years ago while preparing to reopen B’nai Moshe’s library. She realized that she could use only about half the books that had been moved from the congre- gation’s former home in Oak Park; the others were damaged beyond repair. She also real- ized that the synagogue had no suitable children’s books about the springtime holiday of Shavuot. When she couldn’t find one she liked to pur- chase, she decided to write her own. Wasserman chose Ruthie Cisse to do the illustrations. Wasserman had met Cisse, a New York artist, at a post-Shabbat kiddush at B’nai Moshe. Cisse’s grandmother, Adelyn Greenberg, is a congregation member. Wasserman’s heroine, Sarah, shows her love for the holiday — which cel- ebrates the giving of the Torah to the Children of Israel — along with her happiness in celebrating it and her real- ization that she needs to join the ideas of personal freedom and responsible communal behavior in her own life. “Sarah is not just a little girl,” Wasserman said. “For me she rep- resents every girl, every child, every person, male and female, since every- one received the gift of Torah at Mount Sinai. On Shavuot, we are all standing at Mount Sinai.” I Am Standing at Mount Sinai is available at amazon.com. BARBARA LEWIS CONTRIBUTING WRITER Writing for Kids Prolifi c author’s four new books make kids laugh — and think. ARTS&LIFE BOOKS Sherry Wasserman holds the children’s book she wrote about Shavuot. BARBARA LEWIS