Behind every thriving Jewish community are programs that spark connection, belonging, and lifelong engagement. Through the Federation’s Annual Campaign, 100% of donations go directly to the organizations and initiatives that strengthen us— creating vibrant spaces for Jewish life to flourish, standing strong against antisemitism and hate, ensuring our community’s safety and security, and caring for those in need. PJ Library Bay Area, a program of the Federation, exemplifies this impact by welcoming families into Jewish life through the gift of stories, shared experiences, and meaningful community connections that begin at home and grow for years to come.
Some children grow up loving books. Pamela Mayer, who spent hours at the West Portal branch of the San Francisco Public Library Branch, was no exception. It was there, she recalls, that she first understood a book didn’t just appear — a person made it. “When I was a child and realized that people had written those books, I knew that was something I wanted to do,” Mayer says. Decades later, after years working as a children’s librarian, she would be chosen as an author by the PJ Library program — a national initiative that gives families free Jewish children’s books.
A Phone Call She Never Expected
Mayer had already published children’s books — her debut, The Scariest Monster in the Whole Wide World, grew out of a simple observation that “sometimes kids didn’t get to be what they wanted to be for Halloween. It was what their parents thought was best for them.” But she hadn’t set out to write specifically Jewish stories. That changed when a member of the PJ Library Book Selection Committee, Blu Greenberg, read Mayer’s book, The Grandma Cure, about a kindergartner whose two grandmothers take turns caring for her while she stays home with a cold. “She said that the committee thought there was something Jewish about that book,” Mayer remembers, “and she wondered if I had ever thought of writing Jewish-themed children’s books. She said that if I did, to send them to PJ Library.”
The moment she hung up the phone, something shifted. “I realized I had lots and lots of ideas for books with a Jewish theme,” she says. That conversation launched four Jewish-themed picture books, each a PJ Library selection.
Pamela’s PJ Library Shelf
Her first PJ Library book, Don’t Sneeze at the Wedding, drew on her husband’s career as a wedding photographer. “At the time, he photographed a lot of Jewish weddings, and sometimes I would assist,” she explains, “and I saw all the things that happened behind the scenes at a wedding.”
Her most personal book, Chicken Soup, Chicken Soup, features two grandmothers — one with a Jewish recipe, one with a Chinese one — competing lovingly for their shared granddaughter’s affection. The inspiration was her own grandmother: “My grandmother was a wonderful cook, and so she made chicken soup with kreplach, and so I was thinking of her.” The message she hoped children would take from it: “We’re all a little bit different, but a lot the same.” The book was later chosen for a national program distributing picture books about food and culture to schools nationwide.
Peek-A-Boo Passover, a board book, teaches very young children about items on the seder table. Her fourth title, The Mouse Who Danced the Hora, was published directly by PJ Publishing rather than her usual imprint. The idea traced back to her own childhood: “It seemed to me that all the little cute animals in children’s books were celebrating Christmas when I was a little girl,” she says — and she wanted Jewish children to see their own celebrations reflected instead.
What “Jewish Joy” Means Right Now
Asked what Jewish joy means to her personally, Mayer connected it to the present moment. “I think that the strength of our community is really keeping people going, and I think that’s important right now,” she says, “because some of the things you read, I don’t want Jewish children to get the message that everybody hates us.” For Mayer, writing joyful, everyday Jewish stories is a way to ensure they sit alongside those of other cultures in children’s literature, rather than being left out. PJ Library, she notes, deliberately avoids heavier subject matter for its youngest readers: “They don’t really want books about the Holocaust or death” — leaving room instead for holidays, food, family, and humor.
What Makes PJ Library So Special
PJ Library Bay Area is a program of Jewish Federation Bay Area, sending free, age-appropriate Jewish books to children up to age eight every month, with additional titles for ages nine to twelve through PJ Our Way. Mayer sees that infrastructure reflected in the families PJ Library reaches: “PJ Library books are going out to families who are Orthodox, then also to those where maybe just one of the parents is Jewish, and the other might not know that much about Jewish culture and stories.”
It also sustains the writers themselves. “You don’t go into writing children’s books to make money,” Mayer notes, but PJ Library pays writers selected for the program. “That really helps,” she says. Chosen books typically go out to 25,000 families, giving PJ Library authors wonderful exposure. As Mayer says, “Writers love to be read!”
Mayer now has five grandchildren who receive PJ Library books monthly, and marvels at the program’s growth since her first book was chosen in 2013. “For many years, if it was a Jewish children’s book, it would just be about the Holocaust or a holiday,” she reflects. “Now it’s about all aspects of Jewish life.” Bay Area donors who support the Federation’s work are, in effect, funding exactly that shift — the growing shelf of stories about Sephardic traditions, Ugandan Jewish communities, chicken soup and dumplings, weddings and sneezes, which let Jewish children everywhere see the full, joyful breadth of who they are.
If you’d like to learn more or sign up your children for PJ library, please visit jewishfed.org/pjlibrary
