Today’s picture book is a fun mashup of hide-and-seek (akin to Where’s Waldo?) and Jewish passover customs.
Welcome back Rebecca!
Me: I love the concept of a hide-and-seek book for something that is naturally hidden in the Passover traditions. What gave you the idea?
Rebecca: Thanks so much! So, in order to explain how I got the idea, I have to first explain a little bit about the rituals that take place during the Passover holiday.
For those who may not be familiar, I like to describe Passover as “Jewish Thanksgiving,” where we gather together around a big table, eat great food, sing songs, say prayers, and express gratitude for our freedom and for all the good things we are blessed to have in our lives. The gathering is called a “seder” and one of the rituals that takes place about halfway through the seder, after the meal, is called “searching for the afikoman.” This is when a piece of broken matzah cracker – called the “afikoman” – is hidden somewhere in the home and all the kids embark upon a manic search to find it and win the coveted prize.
During my own childhood seders, I have fond memories of my sister and I (and other family friends) tearing through the house, upending couch cushions, throwing open cabinets, and digging through drawers! (My guess is that my mom has less fond memories of this!)
These memories were the impetus for this story, along with a longtime desire to do a fractured fairytale version of The Gingerbread Man. Once I’d written the first draft, I thought about how fun it would be if I could also find a way to involve the reader by making it a seek-and-find, much like the Where’s Waldo and Richard Scarry books I enjoyed reading with my own two boys when they were little.
Me: So to clarify for non-Jewish readers (like me), is Afikoman already thought of as a person or a character? Or is it just a piece of matzah and you personified it in this story?
Rebecca: Oh! No, the Afikoman is not a person or character! That was just my crazy imagination having some silly fun and “running” with it (pun absolutely intended!). The afikoman (not capitalized) is just the larger half of a piece of matzah (a tasteless flat cracker) that is broken in two as part of a symbolic ritual during the Passover seder and then hidden for the kids to find.
Me: Did you always have a hide-and-seek concept in mind from the start of this story? How did your manuscript evolve? Were there many revisions or was this story a gift from the muses?
Rebecca: I honestly didn’t remember so I just went back to my very first draft of this story (originally titled “Afikoman Hunt,” dated Jan. 2, 2020) and it looks like the seek-and find aspect did not come from the start. It looks like I was first thinking of it as a young Passover board book. I see that I made a huge list of prepositions – above, below, under, over, around, atop, etc. so maybe I was thinking that could be a hook? But I do see even in that original draft, I’d already started playing around with the refrain, which is almost identical to the final version.
In terms of process, it looks like I shelved this one for a year and a half after that first draft! My next draft is dated July 20, 2021! I assume the pandemic played a role in that, but again it’s all a blur. As for the seek-and-find concept, the first time I see the addition of that in the pitch is Aug. 11, 2021. After that there are 17 more drafts.
So…definitely not a “gift from the muses”! This one took some time. However, once it went on sub in January 2022, Lauri Hornik from Rocky Pond/Penguin Random House scooped it up within 5 days!
Me: And no surprise there, it’s a brilliant concept! What is one thing that surprised you in writing this story?
Rebecca: One thing that surprised me was how difficult it was to develop the perfect ending. When Lauri acquired the book, the book ended with (spoiler alert!) Afikoman getting eaten (GASP!). I really didn’t feel like there was any problem with this because: 1) If you look at most iterations of the Gingerbread Man, the main character does indeed get eaten at the end. 2) At the Passover seder, the afikoman is meant to be eaten as a symbolic “dessert” after the meal, and 3) I was initially envisioning Afikoman as a sort of sneaky “villain” character, so I thought kids would kind of enjoy the idea of him getting his “just desserts.”
Lauri, however, thought cannibalism took it a little too far, so asked me to pull back on it. After MANY stressful nights (because changing even one word in a completed rhyming manuscript is torturous!) I managed to come up with what we both felt was an even better twist. (If your readers want to find out what actually does happen to our little Afikoman friend, they’ll just have to read the book!)
Me: I love the twist at the end! The illustrations by Noa Kelner are so fun. I loved looking through every picture to look for Afikoman hidden in such detail! You left plenty of room for the illustrator to work. Did you have any illustration notes? Or did the illustrator come up with all the scenes and hidden spots on her own?
Rebecca: I had a few illustration notes that were necessary to explain things happening in the story that weren’t obvious in the text (like certain parts of the twist ending!), but I didn’t have any notes about any of the scenes. That said, the text itself references the kitchen, office, bedroom, and yard, but Noa absolutely had room to play and add her own flavor to many of the spreads. For instance, the awesome scene in the beginning that shows the entire interior layout of the house, as well as the addition of a treehouse outside were 100% Noa’s brilliance. Also, the bathroom scene, which we’ll discuss more in a minute!
Me: Were there any illustration surprises for you? Any favorites?
Rebecca: Oh, yes! When I initially wrote this book, I thought of Afikoman as a smarmy, snarky, dislikeable character. In fact, I originally included a back matter “celebrity interview” where all of the Afikoman’s answers were arrogant and condescending (I still think that interview is hilarious and I may use it as fodder for a future story…who knows?!)
So yes, I was very surprised at how Noa drew Afikoman more as a silly, trickster, which – of course — makes so much more sense and works so wonderfully in this book. In fact, after seeing the illustrations, I changed the first line of the book from: “Have you seen the Afikoman? He’s a smug and sneaky guy” to “Have you seen the Afikoman? He’s a silly, sneaky guy.”
As for favorite spreads, that’s tough. Noa is a master of the fake-out and every spread includes such intricate details, often in browns and beiges to provide camouflage for Afikoman. She included so many red herrings to purposefully trick the reader. Her work really is brilliant! But if I have to choose, I’d say I love the bathroom scene the most, mainly because I originally DID have a bathroom scene in my text but took it out because my crit partners thought it was gross to have food in the bathroom. So, when I saw that Noa (totally on her own!) put a bathroom scene in, I laughed out loud! I also really love the endpapers, where more of Afikoman’s silly personality is revealed.
Me: I love that! Why was it important to you to share these fun Jewish customs associated with the Passover with young readers?
Rebecca: Growing up Jewish in a predominantly non-Jewish town, I often felt like I was “other” and I very rarely saw myself in the books I read. I think it is important to share Jewish traditions like this one in picture books so that Jewish kids see themselves and their experiences in books and know that their family rituals and holidays matter.
Equally as important is sharing Jewish traditions with non-Jewish kids. I was so thrilled that an editor at a large traditional publisher acquired this book because it means (I hope!) that it will find its way into the hands of kids from all different backgrounds who will enjoy reading about and participating in a new (and fun!) tradition. As creators, one of our goals is to help kids understand and have empathy for one another – and the best way to do that is to expose them to stories that highlight each other’s worlds.
Absolutely! Thank you for stopping by my blog again Rebecca.
Dear readers, if you haven’t yet had a chance to read this book just released a few weeks ago, I highly recommend it. It’s a creative twist on religious and fairy tale traditions that will engage young readers in a new way. And that is definitely worth studying!