From Kirkus Reviews

"[Zevy's] debut short story collection offers whimsical, mostly true tales of his life..."

But this book, consisting of 34 tales, isn't exclusively autobiographical. A man named Harold Goldfarb headlines a series of hysterical stories...
Zevy writes in an easy-going style which is both polished and seemingly improvised...
Complementing the author's humor is earnestness, particularly when writing about his charming parents...
Heartfelt and droll tales which blend autobiography and fiction.

From Midwest Book Review:

"It's entertaining, it's funny, it's culturally revealing, and it's steeped in the unexpected."

Almost the Truth: Stories and Lies is uniformly one of the more creative, satisfyingly reads of 2020. Readers who enjoy wry humor and life observations that depart from any anticipated pathway will delight in Aaron Zevy's collection, which is often politically or culturally incorrect in delightful ways.

Starred Review from Blue Ink Review

"With the ease of a practiced storyteller and an outrageously droll sense of humor, Aaron Zevy ("Ronnie" to his friends and family), presents an anthology of rollicking personal essays and fictional short stories in his latest offering..."

"Zevy's self-deprecating humor makes him an irresistible character. His easy-going prose and fast-paced, sitcom-style conversations create laugh-out-loud and sometimes poignant mo-ments. While those un-familiar with contemp-orary Jewish customs and religious traditions may miss the subtler culturally related humor, Zevy's facile comic ability will appeal to anyone willing to find humor in the human condition."

From Midwest Book Review:

"...A winning set of amusing, fun, thought-provoking reads..."

"Each story contains an underlying lesson about life. Most of all, they teach a form of humor and observation which keeps readers engaged, laughing, and considering the slings and arrows of life and one's reaction to it."

"'Bubbe Meise' is defined as a 'An Old Wives Tale'. An untrue story. It's also the heart and soup of Zevy's fun tales, which are highly recommended for readers looking for humor and something eloquently different."

From Publisher's Weekly BookLife

"Wry, self-deprecating humor is the highlight of this delightful collection of drawn-from-life short fictions, the third from Canadian Zevy (The Bubbe Meise and Other Stories). With prose and a warm, incisive comic spirit reminiscent of the likes of Arthur Bradford or Ruskin Bond, Zevy's vivid vignettes find inspiration in people the author meets during the course of his days, everyday activities like going for a walk or meeting friends for a meal, or discussing rejection slips at Starbucks. But behind these quotidian happenings and their hilarious descriptions, these stories also gently illuminate human foibles and follies.

From Kirkus Reviews

A collection offers short stories that blend truth and fiction.

In a prefatory note, Zevy warns readers of his tendency toward literary embellishment, the untidy merger of remembrance and invention, resulting in tales "of both imagination and lived experiences mixed together to delight and entertain." Sometimes, a flight of fancy is obvious—for example, in two stories the Angel of Death is a principal character, described in a gamesomely comic manner that typifies the author's style throughout this volume: "He has the requisite goatee and a cowlick which looks like it is held down by gel. He is wearing khakis and a button-down shirt. If I didn't know he was the Angel of Death I would have guessed he was an assistant manager at Whole Foods." When the Angel of Death unexpectedly shows up for dinner and allows the narrator to resurrect someone, the man randomly blurts out the name of Italo Svevo, the Italian novelist. Zevy's signature devices are the hazy amalgamation of fact and fantasy and the disruption of the quotidian by the jocosely absurd. The author discusses bird-watching, the life of a germaphobe before the pandemic, stamp collecting, and food—he's at his best proving that the extraordinary exists within the ordinary. Readers will be drawn into these largely brief vignettes, and the line of demarcation between the real and the imagined will cease to matter. In fact, the audience will learn to embrace the messy mixture.

From Blue Ink Reviews

"Author Aaron Zevy is back with another boisterous collection of short stories guaranteed to delight and entertain.

Zevy and his zany collection of friends and relatives from previous books return to act as the author's foils in his predicaments and self-deprecating stories. The author deftly conjures tall tales, perhaps based on reality — or not. The laugh-out-loud quality of his work makes fact or fiction irrelevant."

From California Bookwatch

"Not Book Club Material is a memoir packed with wry humor, mouth-watering revelations, and insights that are candid, thought-provoking, and fun all in one. The introduction to this collection captures all these facets in a few succinct lines: "Before my first collection came out, I toyed with the notion of adding a recipe section in the middle of the book because many of the stories were about the Egyptian Jewish food I was raised on. Books, especially self-published story collections by completely unknown former powder paint salesmen are, as it turns out, surprisingly hard to market and I thought the recipes might be a compelling hook. One July morning, over a breakfast of scrambled eggs at the cottage, I made the mistake of casually suggesting it might be of interest for book clubs. I actually thought it was a pretty good idea. This led my sister-in-law to utter the sentence which became the family's favorite line in the summer of 2020. "Your book," she said in her completely honest and unfiltered style, "is not book club material."

Thus, the title was born...and a rollicking ride through a life that introduces (and quickly answers) the question of what makes a good book club read and that book clubs…

Above all, enjoy vivid, thought-provoking material. Ironically, Not Book Club Material's stories represent these very things, and it would be a shame if book clubs judged the title by the size of its tales. Here lies bright, sparkling jewels of insight and experience in fun mix of reality and fantasy that features a host of characters and dilemmas and more than light references to food.

The delightful family stories usually conclude with ironic twists. Each stand-alone piece adds to the strength of the collection as a whole, providing enticing tidbits of facts and whimsy to delight the heart and mind like sugar on the tongue.

Perhaps now, more than ever, there is an exceptional need for the laughter, fun, and family reflections of the stories in Not Book Club Material. And these facets make for, ironically, perfect book club material indeed as readers navigate the Jewish culture, Egyptian heritage, and observations of food, love, and learning that permeate this collection.

Jewish, literary, and general-interest humor and memoir readers who delight stories of in food and family will all find Not Book Club Material a major attraction. And, yes, book clubs interested in any of these subjects should put it high on their reading lists."

From the Jewish Book Council

Schlepping Across the Nile: Collected Stories

Review By Nina Schneider - August 12, 2024

This entertaining collection of comedy sketches offers the reader a glimpse into the world of the Egyptian Jewish diaspora. The son of a Sephardic mother and an Ashkenazi father, Canadian writer Aaron Zevy recalls the humorous, often exaggerated family memories particular to his Sephardic side. His mission is ​“to tell a good story,” and he often succeeds.

The author’s self-deprecating humor is reminiscent of Gary Shteyngart’s. His schleppy persona introduces us to a little-known Sephardic subculture in Montreal. He often seems concerned about fitting in, and about his friends meeting his unusual and quirky family.

Zevy describes Sephardic food obsessions, the sheer number of languages used within one sentence (Arabic, French, English), and his family’s nostalgia for Cairo despite the fact that they were expelled from Egypt “for the second time” — a reference to Exodus. 

Zevy is on a mission to extract details from his immigrant parents and relatives. He explains that his family left Egypt after the 1956 Suez Crisis. “Everyone, it turns out, was fired on the same day. Their bank accounts were frozen and my Tante Liliane did spend some time in prison. My father, though born in Egypt, was Ashkenazi and somehow managed to land himself a passport ... Perhaps it is the passage of time but none of their stories were told with any bitterness. If anything, they all remembered their life in Egypt as halcyon days. It had been a place which was good for the Jews. And then it wasn’t.” 

“Home Made Cake,” an essay about a famous bakery in the Cairo suburb of Heliopolis, is a standout. As a child, Zevy used to hear his parents, aunts, and uncles swoon over the fantastic French pastries — especially the éclairs — they used to buy at a place Zevy knew only as “Om Met Kek.” “Pronounced very quickly,” he writes. “With no pause between each word ... It sounded like all the other Arabic names and expressions.” Zevy continues: “Every time they spoke about the patisserie on rue Ismaili Pasha I never, not once, heard the words Home Made Cake. Only Om Met Kek.”

In “Hanono,” Zevy relates how he used to play poker in Hallandale, Florida with his late uncle “and his crew of octogenarian Egyptians. So while I did not know how to speak Arabic, I could play poker in Arabic. ... a really lousy hand earned the Arabic designation of a ‘khara’ — just shit.” 

While not all twenty-five vignettes are equally engaging, this collection delivers some good laughs as well as insights.

From Midwest Reviews

Schlepping Across the Nile: Collected Stories gathers vignettes and memoirs from Aaron Zevy's first three books, compiling them into an adventure story that follows the odyssey of the first-born son of an Ashkenazi father and Sephardic mother. Zevy opens his tale with the trademark humor that made his prior publications major attractions:

"This story begins with a phone call from my cousin Morris. It also begins with something I almost never do when getting a phone call from my cousin Morris. I answer it. Right away, I am reminded of the benefit of screening."

Like too many who deem themselves successful in relationships, Morris holds the answer to almost every dilemma Zevy faces in his life:

“Your problem is you go out with Ashkenazi women instead of finding yourself a nice Egyptian Jewish woman. Somebody with similar history, food and culture. Someone you have something in common with.”

The solution, besides adhering more strictly to screening one's phone calls? Take up the challenge with a journey that explores Egyptian Jewish ancestry and legacy.

Schlepping Across the Nile is a memoir, travelogue, and ethnic inspection steeped in elements of misadventure and high drama. It embraces a range of Jewish traditions and experiences, from a blind date during Seder to the special ironies of his family's experiences:

"My favorite part of the seder is L’dor Va Dor. In every generation we are to regard ourselves as if we ourselves had gone out of Egypt. I love that. Because this is when my mom would say 'I did go out of Egypt.'”

That wry sense of humor and ironic inspections mentioned previously keeps these stories light, but thought-provoking.

Whether it's hurling a juicy Arabic insult during a poker game by Egyptians or listening to blind date war stories, Zevy embeds his writing with personal experience, observational prowess, and just plain fun. These elements are punctuated with black and white photos throughout for added visual impact.

While the likely audience for this literary and social observation will be Jewish readers, Zevy's ability to reach beyond a set ethnic group to engage, educate, and entertain audiences of all origins makes Schlepping Across the Nile of widespread attraction to anyone who seeking a series of rollicking fun, interesting short works.

Whether Zevy is making observations about generational differences in the process of pursuing love and dates or steeped in Jewish traditions and heritage, his works offer inspections that are cemented by his dry insights throughout:

"...‘blind’ is such a misnomer that it is laughable. This generation has seen more pictures of their prospective dates than I have of my entire family collectively. When we went in blind, we really went in blind. Armed with no more, especially if the set up was from a female friend, than weathered adjectives about bubbly personalities and shared interests, and creatively ambitious promises about looks."

Libraries and readers looking for particularly compelling short vignettes about love, life, and culture will find Schlepping Across the Nile a major attraction. It's not just for audiences of Jewish readers, but highly recommended for book clubs and discussion groups looking for an easy read that holds deceptively thought-provoking impact.

From Publisher's Weekly

Powered by love and written with the can-you-top-this? punchiness of a born dinner-time storyteller, this charming, conversational, and often uproarious collection from Zevy (author of Almost the Truth: Stories and Lies) about his family and upbringing often turns on surprising bits of language. Like thousands of Jews, his parents, an Ashkenazi father and Sephardic mother, were forced out of Egypt in 1956; raising a family in suburban Montreal, they spoke French in the house and spiced the conversation with lively Arabic words and phrases. These include one that—in Zevy's telling—means something like "leave me alone" but literally translates as "enema." More telling is a phrase meaning "the story is wearing a bedsheet," used to say there's more to a tale than might be readily apparent.

Zevy pares these memories to the bone, their telling here as crisp as well-honed stand-up routines. But all their punchlines and incisive character portraiture they're also swaddled in bedsheets. Reading these stories—of drinking games at family seders, of trying to land a big client for the family business, of introducing a complex Chinese poker variant to octogenarian Egyptian Jews, of the mystery of snapshots of topless women on a beach in a family photo album—is both a pleasure and an immersion, as close an invitation to imagine this family's most joyous moments of sharing and laughter.

Some stories Zevy says he's telling for the first time. Others feel like the best kind of family ritual, with Zevy even acknowledging what details got invented to score bigger laughs in the re-telling. He even carps that the thunder of one doozy, about a blind date, has been stolen, a little, by its vague similarity to a Seinfeld premise. That just makes it funnier, as does his occasional twists, like the marvelous swindle he pulls to make readers think the one about driving a tractor on a kibbutz is going to be sexy.

Takeaway: Hilarious, touching stories of an Egyptian Jewish family's life in North America.

From Krikus Reviews

Zevy offers episodic reminiscences of his life and family history in this memoir.

The stories with which the author begins this volume look back to his family's history of membership in the huge Jewish community that existed in Egypt before the 1956 Suez Crisis, which precipitated the emigration of his mother, father, aunts, and uncles to Montreal, Canada. The stories his relatives tell about these years have a resigned quality: "If anything, they all remembered their life in Egypt as halcyon days," Zevy writes. "It had been a place which was good for the Jews. And then it wasn't." From this beginning, the narrative expands in many directions, most of which reflect on some aspect of the author's Jewishness. Recalling an encounter with a Galilean rabbi, for instance, Zevy writes, "I eat bread on Passover, I do not fast on Yom Kippur, I drive a car and light a fire on shabbat," adding puckishly, "and I have, more than once, coveted my neighbor's wife." There are more generalized stories balancing these Judaism-themed chapters; "I Shall Be Released," for example, is the story of the Angel of Death visiting the narrator and needing to use the bathroom ("He has the requisite goatee and a cowlick which looks like it is held down by gel. He is wearing khakis and a button-down shirt. If I didn't know he was the Angel of Death I would have guessed he was an assistant manager at Whole Foods"); the two end up playing chess and talking about music. In "Looking for Maurice," the author is inspired by the appearance of a picture by the French painter Maurice Utrillo in the background of a family photo to talk about the artist and reflect on the painting.

This kind of mish-mash of autobiographical whimsy and nostalgia is usually as tedious as listening to someone narrate a large family album, but Zevy spares his readers this discomfort. He mainly does so through zestful storytelling and a persistent wry humor that almost always lands (in the story "Straight Sets," for instance, he writes of his father, "If you closed your eyes, you would think you were listening to the late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat," adding: "If Sadat was the owner of a powder coating company and not the President of Egypt"). The author creates the feeling of a warm story-session in the living room of a funny, charismatic friend skilled at keeping his audience engaged. At almost every point, he's ready with a sharp observation or a punchy zinger, as in the story "Shesh Besh," which recounts the narrator's blind dinner date with an online match (TorontoCityGirl44): "She does not fake-reach for her purse when the bill arrives," Zevy writes. "Which, to be honest, I appreciate." Some will enjoy the droll "kids-these-days" notes that the author occasionally strikes (deadpan observations about emojis and the like). Throughout the book, the narrative momentum is sustained—readers will seldom be tempted to stop turning the pages.

A consistently engaging collection of family stories and personal anecdotes.

From Blue Ink Reviews

Prolific humorist Aaron Zevy returns with his latest collection of tales— a mix of truth and imagination—in Schlepping Across the Nile. Many stories are selected from his previous books.

Zevy's father, an Ashkenazi Jew (of central European descent), and his mother, a Sephardic Jew (of Spanish/Portuguese descent) were once part of an 80,000 strong Jewish-Egyptian community. They were expelled from Egypt after the 1956 Suez Crisis—the "second exodus," writes Zevy. Immigrating to Canada, "We were the other Jews," he jests.

Zevy's preference for Sephardic customs and food provide fodder for some of his humor. His constant complaining about Ashkenazi food at a Passover Seder becomes the cue for a drinking game among the younger participants.

French, Arabic, English, and Hebrew are used interchangeably in most family dialogue. This polyglot of languages results in farcical misunderstandings. Family reminiscing about a favorite bakery, Home Made Cake, becomes "Om Met Kek" in Zevy's mind. Upon discovering the name was English, not Arabic, the author becomes the butt of many family jokes.

A poignant entry reminiscing about his recently deceased mother highlights Zevy's versatility. "Because that is my mother." "And I will miss her," he writes with heartfelt emotion.

Zevy's Seinfeld-esque, self-deprecating humor makes him instantly relatable and charming. The author's trademark staccato sentences, profanities and punchlines are also used to great effect. For example: "I tell people that the ‘schlepping' in the title is a nod to my father's Ashkenaz side. But that's not really true. I never heard him say it. I just think it's a funny word."

Zevy is masterful with his craft, and readers of any stripe will find droll humor within these pages.

From Publisher's Weekly

This impeccably photographed and eminently enjoyable collection of stories finds Zevy, the storyteller behind Schlepping Across the Nile, recounting the joy of hunting and preserving vintage radios, from a 1938 Emerson Bullseye with its "unmistakable and stunning Sakhnoffsky design" to a 1975 Spider-Man transistor radio ordered off Ebay to dazzle a grandnephew. As in Zevy's other amusing collections of not-quite-nonfiction stories, Radio Daze is penned in a polished, wisecracking, conversational style that wastes few words, this time offering insight into the role radios play in his personal life and our collective history while also exploring a resonant question: What lengths would you go to add the perfect piece to the collection you treasure but that others may find a little weird?

Zevy would go pretty far. His friends Allie, Lewberg, and Goldfarb try their best to reel him in, but for the most part, they have failed. Zevy has endured cranky neighbors, the film industry, and an unpredictable NFT market, to add to his impressive collection, documented here in striking photos. The vibrant colors of radios from the art deco and space-age eras are in compelling harmony with the designs. But his "descent" doesn't come at the cost of his decency. Touchingly, when he scores his top-of-the-list dream find, a 1946 Cyarts manufactured with Plexon and Lucite, for a surprisingly good price at a Miami pawn shop, he posts a cautious note online inviting anyone who's had such a radio stolen to contact him.

As always, Zevy makes no claim to the factual veracity of these tales, which build to wry twists, sharp jokes, and incisive, even prankish surprises—in fact, the one about the Spider-Man transistor radio ends with family members telling him it would work better if he made it less true. For all the radio history, here, Zevy's real subiect is collecting itself; let radios stand in for any of our passions, pursued and collected over the years, and Radio Daze will often show ourselves.

Takeaway: Funny, surprising stories of a collector's passion for gorgeous vintage radios.

From BookWatch Reviews

Zevy presents a collection of stories about collecting old radios in this memoir.

"Radio Daze: A Descent Into Collecting pairs lovely color photos of Aaron Zevy's personal antique radio collection with a chronicle of how he became enamored of radios from the 1930s and 40s. He built his attraction and historical knowledge from the unexpected development of a writer's block which led him to turn his attention to collecting for respite and rejuvenation.

Most book introductions provide staid background information, but Zevy's colorful way of capturing his passion brings its origins to life in a manner that portends an equally colorful series of stories:

"Someone even had the temerity to use the line "if these radios could talk, oh what stories they could tell." I threw that person out of my house. Let the radios be, I pleaded. Let them sit on their shelves, and let them sing their songs of unbearable static. They were not literary devices. They were not writing exercises. They were just old radios. And then, as you may have guessed, I wrote a story. And then another. And then this book."

'The Radio Contest' opens the collection with a memoir of Zevy's youth and entering a radio station contest that promised coveted concert tickets as a prize. There was only one special challenge to winning-a father's strict rule about dinner time and phone calls.

Readers won't expect the diversity of stories which chronicle lives, bygone years, and early dating scenarios in which radio collections were not to be mentioned.

The lively intersection of memoir and radio history represents a rare conjoined history of fate and snafus involved in growing a collection, an interest, and a mindset. The reflections on particular pieces that proved a collecting challenge or the backgrounds and appearances that made these radios a major attraction to Zevy form the foundations of a series of interlinked stories that will attract and educate even readers who held little prior interest in radio history or collecting.

A good collection of stories will reach beyond its intended audience to surprise, delight, and entertain the masses.

Radio Daze: A Descent Into Collecting's ability to reach beyond radio's signals and into the lives of any reader who has cultivated a passion for collecting, art, or history makes it a top recommendation for general-interest lending libraries as well as specialty media collections. Book clubs interested in an uncommon, exceptionally lively blend of memoir and collector's passion will find Radio Daze: A Descent Into Collecting will provoke all manner of connection and lively discussion.

From Kirkus Reviews

Zevy presents a collection of stories about collecting old radios in this memoir.

"Radios are my thing," writes the author in what certainly must be the understatement of the year. His book tells the story of this overwhelming collector's urge: He fell under the spell of vintage radios early in life, came to know them very well, and started collecting them. Several of the radios are presented in these pages as the linchpins of stories relating moments from both Zevy's adventures as collector and from his life with his friends and family. Inevitably, some of the stories feature high degrees of nerdy punctilio (the author notices, at one point, that a set in the movie Goodfellas features a 1956 Motorola radio in a scene that takes place in 1978), but Zevy regularly counterbalances this element with everyman observations about everything from dealing with delivery services to negotiating with sketchy dealers. He likewise softens the ultra-niche nature of his own specific interest by painting an effective portrait of what it's like to be a dedicated collector—not just of vintage radios, but of anything. Readers are shown every aspect of the life of a collector, from the "honeymoon phase" (that was "affecting a judgment which was already teetering on the edge of sanity") to the resigned and world-weary later stages of accepting that virtually nobody else will understand the obsession. To help give readers context for his avocation, the author includes clear color photos of all of his focal-point radios.

The author begins the chapter titled "1947 Northern Electric Baby Champ," for instance, by recounting a drive from Montreal to Toronto in 1977 to start his first year in university. Of course, he's aware of the limited appeal of his subject; he mentions it several times. "For a while, every time I received a new radio, I would take a photograph and post it on our family group chat," he writes; most of his family would just ignore him. This wry self-deprecation buoys the narrative and saves it from being a pure exercise in the tedium of inflicting a family album on a stranger. And he's consistently funny when describing the various astonished reactions his collection elicits from normal people. In the chapter titled "1954 Sparton Football," for instance, he reports that the most common question he gets is whether or not all those old radios actually work. "It is a bit of a tricky question because, although the great majority do work, they don't get very good, or actually any, reception where I live," he writes. "So, I end up giving Bill Clinton-like answers – ‘it depends on your definition of works.' " The cumulative effect of these quips and relatable storytelling ultimately saves the book from being for fellow collectors only.

A surprisingly engaging look at the life of an avid collector.

From Blue Ink Reviews

Humorist Aaron Zevy's latest book, Radio Daze, offers short stories, each relating to a vintage radio from his prized collection.

"Collecting and addiction are separate words, but I'm not entirely sure they are all that different," quips Zevy in this new work. His extensive vintage (1938-1974) radios line the walls of almost every room in his home. Chapters begin with a photograph from the collection: each a work of art evoking a bygone era. As is his way, Zevy blends fact and fiction, resulting in comical, offbeat stories.

Entries include a golfing rabbi with a wicked slice; a "prehistoric reptile about 18 inches long" (evasively loose in the house); a mangled radio from war-torn Ukraine, and a reprise visit from the Angel of Death. In one memorable story, Zevy discovered that a radio in his collection was likely a looted Nazi radio. He flew to New York to participate in a ceremony returning items to the owners' ancestors. He eventually replaced it, quipping, "I'm pretty sure it [the replacement] hadn't been stolen. But I didn't display it just in case."

Readers familiar with Zevy's writing will welcome the return of his wingmen, the Ketel and Cran drinking Goldfarb and the sometimes-dour Lewberg, amusing foils in many stories.

Zevy uses his trademark staccato style, and each story ends with a one-line zinger, usually eliciting a smile or a chuckle."

"Aaron Zevy is a Canadian Comedy writer who happened to go down the path of collecting (and to some degree obsessing) over good old fashioned table radios and pocket portables. Since I have quite a few five tube classics in my collection, this book caught my eye when it showed up as an ad on my Facebook feed. I reached out to Aaron and he was happy to get a copy of his book to me for a nice Beach Read. When was the last time you read a book related to the radio hobby that was laugh out loud funny? For those of us initiated into the deeper depths of the radio world, you will even get more enjoyment from the reading than maybe the folks the book was originally intended for. Zevy's book is a series of personal anecdotes, each of which surrounds the acquisition of one radio or another. The radio for each story includes a picture that, as a collector myself, often leaves me drooling. For example, his somewhat well used 1960 Zenith Royal 50 harkens back to my own Silvertone 6 Transistor my Grandfather gave me for my 6^th Birthday. (I still have it)"

From BookWatch Reviews

Retro Radio Rainbow teaches picture book readers the seven colors of the rainbow, but adopts an unusual approach to the effort that taps author Aaron Zevy's personal radio collection and interest in radios.

What do radios have to do with color? Plenty.

Photos of old-time radios from the 1930s and 40s accompany the identification of 'red', 'orange', and other colors to add history into the mix. This especially inviting pairing features large, colorful photos of orange, red, yellow, and other colors of radios that additionally contrasts their size and disparate shapes and appearances.

The education thus arrives twofold: it's a survey of radio history and a lesson in different hues of each color, all in one.

Parents and educators who tire of the usual approach to identifying colors will find the creative effort attractive and unique, here. The retro radio display might even interest and educate them about the very different appearances radios can sport.

Libraries and teachers seeking a colorful tutorial that operates on not just one, but many levels will welcome the unique approach of Retro Radio Rainbow, which could only have come from a collector devoted to radio history as well as children's educational opportunities.

From Kirkus Reviews

Vintage commercial design meets early literacy in Zevy's colorful picture book.

"Radios were once so common, the author writes in his introduction, that their manufacturers produced them in a bevy of different colors and designs to better compete in the marketplace. Zevy lays out a rainbow of radios, guiding readers through every single color, providing multiple crisply photographed examples of different radio designs in that color, then asking the reader to pick out the proper color from a set of four each time. Each radio is unusual and quirky, likely identifiable only by older adult readers. "This radio is yellow. This radio is yellow, too. Can you find the yellow radio?" In his introduction, the author describes his passion for old radios, and this truly shines through—the visuals he provides are striking and compelling….The book's use of repetition is an effective literacy tool…"

From Blue Ink Reviews

Aaron Zevy presents a child's book of colors, seen through a variety of brightly hued radios from the 1930s, '40s, and '50s, in his children's picture book Retro Radio Rainbow.

Zevy is a collector of classic radios and an author of many books for adults, as well as several for children. Meant as a child's introduction to colors, this book also serves as a showcase for those distinctive radios.

Based on the pattern of the rainbow, the book shows a radio in a particular color ("This radio is red"). After two examples of radios of a certain color, the text asks the reader to identify that color ("Can you find the red radio?") in a group of four radios. This simple formula works well, resulting in a book that serves as a functional item—an effective guide to colors—and also an attractive feast for the eyes, combining two purposes much like the sleek radios it displays. The radios shown are truly works of art, and the excellent photographs capture their retro-style beauty.

Zevy's introduction briefly describes how radios in the 1940s and '50s were as common as computers in our day and notes that they had an array of designs and colors to stand out in the crowd. While this seems aimed at adults, rather than the toddlers who are most likely the book's target audience, it provides a charming beginning for those reading to their children.

Thankfully, the book mostly keeps its focus on its stated mission, even offering prime examples of the color indigo, that sometimes hard-to-pinpoint stop on the spectrum between blue and violet. The language is simple and direct, and the book design is bright and fun.

Retro Radio Rainbow is a delightful book that educates young children about the colors of the rainbow in an understandable and unique way.

Also available as an ebook.

From Midwest Book Review

Synopsis: Are you ready for a heartwarming adventure that will leave you feeling inspired? Look no further than Pnina's story. Pnina, a resident of Israel, has always dreamed of seeing snow fall from the sky. Despite the risks, she decides to embark on a journey to Jerusalem in search of this magical phenomenon.

With determination and a sense of wonder, Pnina sets out on a journey that will change her life forever. Will she succeed in her quest or face insurmountable obstacles along the way? Join Pnina on her journey to find out and witness the beauty of snowfall through her eyes.

Critique: A Snowman in Jerusalem is a story of courage, determination, and the unyielding human spirit. Let Pnina's journey inspire you to chase your dreams and find the magic in simple pleasures.

Aaron Zevy's storytelling skills will leave you spellbound. Whether you're looking for a fun family activity or an engaging way to kick off the winter season, Aaron Zevy's storytelling is the perfect choice. This talented author weaves his magic through this story and takes readers on a journey through the imaginative world of seeing the world through a child's eyes.

From Kirkus Reviews

In this charming winter tale, an Israeli girl dreams of seeing snow and her father works to make her dream reality. Pnina lives in the city of Beit Shemesh, Israel. Her father grew up in Canada, and Pnina wishes she could build a snowman like he did in his youth. When she asks why it doesn't snow in Israel, he tells her that it does, but only in Jerusalem. It's only about a half-hour drive from Pnina's house to her grandparents' Jerusalem home, so Pnina wonders why it doesn't snow in both places. But she trusts her Abba to tell her the truth, even if her best friend, Chana Leah, is skeptical about the idea. Eventually, her father wakes her up in the middle of the night and piles the whole family into their van. When they arrive in Jerusalem, the sky is full of snowflakes. Pnina waxes poetic about the snow's appearance: "You won't believe that it fell like stardust, sparkled and fell in impossibly big flakes that night against my face. You will have to see it with your own eyes." And if there isn't enough for a snowman, she doesn't have to tell Chana Leah that! Zevy's story offers a sweet slice-of-life story. The vocabulary makes it best geared toward independent readers at the chapter-book level, and Pnina's voice may feel familiar to readers of kid-lit heroes such as Barbara Park's Junie B. Jones or Debbi Michiko Florence's Jasmine Toguchi. Zevy introduces Hebrew and Yiddish words into the text without explanation, though a few are included in the end glossary with definitions that make no distinction between the languages. (Pnina, when explaining meshugahin the text, just says it's "Jewish for crazy.") Some jokes may sail over the head of some youngsters, such as a reference to Pat Sajak and Wheel ofFortune. Tan's textured, full-color cartoon illustrations have an almost cut-paper feel, especially when featuring snowflakes. A fun winter story that celebrates the novelty of snow.

From Blue Ink Reviews

An 8-year-old Jewish girl living in Israel dreams of seeing snow – and hangs on every word of her father, who insists, "Of course it snows in Israel. But only in Jerusalem" – in this vibrant picture book featuring a chatty, charming heroine. Pnina introduces herself with crayon drawings of her house, family and hometown of Beit Shemesh, 30 miles outside Jerusalem. However, it's a photograph of her father that captivates her. Taken in Canada when he was 8, he shows off a snowman he built "with his own two hands.”

He tells her that building a snowman is easy, but she wonders: "It doesn't look easy. But my Abba never lies so it must be true." Pnina's belief it must be true is the story's compelling hinge. Abba convinces Pnina that it snows in Jerusalem, yet when she tells her best friend she's labeled meshugah, "Jewish for crazy." As months go by, Pnina harbors both hope and doubt until the night she's unexpectedly awakened for a late visit to her grandparents in Jerusalem. There, as Abba promised, she sees snow: "it fell like stardust, sparkled and fell in impossibly big flakes.”

Jeric Tan's splendid digital illustrations are as vivid as Pnina's descriptive narrative, leaning heavily into an orange/purple color palette that echoes Pnina's sunny personality and deepens the magic of a snowy winter night.

Also available as an ebook.