Born on February 5, 1947 in England, teacher and library assistant Joan Betty Stuchner arrived in Canada in 1965 and received her B.A. from UBC in 1977. She continued her "anything is possible" theme from her children's book, The Kugel Valley Klezmer Band (Scholastic $17.99), with Sadie the Ballerina (Scholastic 2007), the story of a clumsy girl who wants to be a ballerina. Set in Nazi-occupied Denmark, her book Honey Cake includes a recipe for honey cake.
BOOKS:
A Peanut Butter Waltz
The Kugel Valley Klezmer Band (Scholastic $17.99). Paperback title: Shira's Hanukkah Gift.
Sadie the Ballerina (Scholastic 2007)
Honey Cake (Tradewind 2007) Illustrated by by Cynthia Nugent. 78-1-896580-37-1 $16.95
[BCBW 2007] "Kidlit" "Jewish"
The Kugel Valley Klezmer Band (Scholastic $17.99)
Info
Shira wants nothing more than to play fiddle with Benny and Yossi in their klezmer band at weddings and bar mitzvahs. But ten-year-old girls can’t play, says her father. Especially one who’s never had a music lesson. “This is Canada,” Shira says in Joan Betty Stuchner’s The Kugel Valley Klezmer Band (Scholastic $17.99). “Anything is possible.” And at the next Hanukkah party, there she is, skirts-a-flying, a borrowed fiddle tucked firmly under her chin. Illustrator Richard Row re-creates the close-knit life of a Jewish village on the prairies. 0-590-03833-8
[BCBW WINTER 1998]
Honey Cake (Tradewind $16.95)
Review
from Louise Donnelly
Ages 8-10
David Nathan lives above the family bakery, right next door to his best friend Elsa and her family’s toy store. David’s Papa still does the best baking in the city and Mama is making her special honey cake for Rosh Hashanah to welcome the Jewish New Year but very little is sweet or rosy in Copenhagen in 1943. Three years earlier, just before Passover, the Nazis had invaded Denmark.
Now the grownups are always anxious and secretive, and even David’s older sister Rachel is evasive about her mysterious comings and goings. Then David is asked to make a delivery of chocolate éclairs—a rare treat with cream and butter so scarce—and learns his sister is in the Resistance, blowing up buildings and railway tracks. Rumours are circulating. Bad things are happening all over occupied Europe. People are disappearing. Especially Jews. Every day King Christian X defiantly rides his horse through Copenhagen’s streets but as Rachel says, “Things happen that even kings can’t stop.”
Yet Mama still bakes the honey cake and the morning before Rosh Hashanah David sits with Papa in the synagogue. Soon, though, Rabbi Melchior makes a terrifying announcement. “The Nazis plan to round up Denmark’s Jews tonight. We must go home and prepare for our escape.” David’s bundled in layers of clothing and Mama snatches up her cake—she’s not about to leave it behind for the Nazis—and the Nathan family hurries to the train station. If they head to the coast, if they escape detection on a fishing boat, if they make it to Sweden, they might just be safe. If…
Inspired by a friend’s story, Honey Cake is the fourth children’s book for Vancouver story- teller and librarian’s assistant Joan Betty Stuchner. Stuchner, who also wrote The Kugel Valley Klezmer Band and teaches part time at a Jewish school, provides a recipe for the spicy, coffee-flavoured honey cake and an afterword relating an intriguing history of the Danish Jews.
Artist Cynthia Nugent, who taught herself to paint and draw from library books, traveled to Copenhagen to research and flavour her illustrations. Visiting the city, she says, “made history come alive.”
978-1-896580-371
[BCBW 2008]
