"It's very rare for a person to just be one thing. Most issues, most things that matter, are not so black and white." – Debbie Levy
We all want to believe in heroes and villains, right and wrong, and clear-cut answers. But history and life are rarely that simple. Debbie Levy has spent her career exploring the gray areas, challenging readers to see multiple perspectives and embrace complexity.
A former lawyer, journalist, and now award-winning children’s author, Debbie has written books like “I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Makes Her Mark,” “The Year of Goodbyes,” and “A Dangerous Idea: The Scopes Trial, the Original Fight Over Science in Schools.” Her work invites readers to think critically, recognize misinformation, and understand that even those we disagree with are still human.
In this episode, We Contain Multitudes: Debbie Levy on the Dangers of Reductionist Thinking, Debbie reflects on what rabbis and Supreme Court justices have in common, why she’s optimistic about students’ ability to deal with disinformation, and how books can help kids hold space for complexity. Plus, a book so sad it was sold with tissues in it, a surprising childhood obsession with Superman, and why her mom taught her that being too good wasn't always a good thing.
We also have a special hidden track at the end of the show. Debbie reflected on our conversation and shared a special story about her dad’s unbelievable but real wartime experience that we saved for the very end.
Tune in for an episode that will make you re-think your perspectives and let you settle into some delightful storytime moments!
***
Jewish identities vary across families, experiences, places, and so much more. In short, they are not one-size-fits-all. Debbie’s reading challenge, Illuminating the Jewish Experience, highlights books that capture its richness and diversity.
This episode's Beanstack Featured Librarian is once again Amy McMichael, the media specialist at Dutchman Creek Middle School in Rock Hill, South Carolina, and the lead librarian for all secondary schools in her district. In this episode, Amy shares about the biggest impact Beanstack has had on the reading culture in her library and school.
Host: Jordan Lloyd Bookey Producers: Mel Webb, Jackie Lamport, and Lower Street Media Script Editors: Josia Lamberto-Egan, Mel Webb, Jackie Lamport, Jordan Lloyd Bookey
Chapters
"It's very rare for a person to just be one thing. Most issues, most things that matter, are not so black and white." – Debbie Levy
We all want to believe in heroes and villains, right and wrong, and clear-cut answers. But history and life are rarely that simple. Debbie Levy has spent her career exploring the gray areas, challenging readers to see multiple perspectives and embrace complexity.
A former lawyer, journalist, and now award-winning children’s author, Debbie has written books like “I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Makes Her Mark,” “The Year of Goodbyes,” and “A Dangerous Idea: The Scopes Trial, the Original Fight Over Science in Schools.” Her work invites readers to think critically, recognize misinformation, and understand that even those we disagree with are still human.
In this episode, We Contain Multitudes: Debbie Levy on the Dangers of Reductionist Thinking, Debbie reflects on what rabbis and Supreme Court justices have in common, why she’s optimistic about students’ ability to deal with disinformation, and how books can help kids hold space for complexity. Plus, a book so sad it was sold with tissues in it, a surprising childhood obsession with Superman, and why her mom taught her that being too good wasn't always a good thing.
We also have a special hidden track at the end of the show. Debbie reflected on our conversation and shared a special story about her dad’s unbelievable but real wartime experience that we saved for the very end.
Tune in for an episode that will make you re-think your perspectives and let you settle into some delightful storytime moments!
***
Jewish identities vary across families, experiences, places, and so much more. In short, they are not one-size-fits-all. Debbie’s reading challenge, Illuminating the Jewish Experience, highlights books that capture its richness and diversity.
This episode's Beanstack Featured Librarian is once again Amy McMichael, the media specialist at Dutchman Creek Middle School in Rock Hill, South Carolina, and the lead librarian for all secondary schools in her district. In this episode, Amy shares about the biggest impact Beanstack has had on the reading culture in her library and school.
Host: Jordan Lloyd Bookey Producers: Mel Webb, Jackie Lamport, and Lower Street Media Script Editors: Josia Lamberto-Egan, Mel Webb, Jackie Lamport, Jordan Lloyd Bookey
Creators & Guests
Host
Jordan Lloyd Bookey
Co-founder of Beanstack @zoobeanreads and creator + host of @readingcultpod
What is The Reading Culture?
Host Jordan Lloyd Bookey speaks with authors and reading enthusiasts to explore ways to build a stronger culture of reading in our communities. They'll dive into their personal experiences, inspirations, and why their stories and ideas are connecting so well with kids.
Debbie Levy:
It's very rare for a person to just be one thing. Most issues, most things that matter are not so black and white. I realized that that can sound wishy washy and a lack of conviction. And I would not describe myself that way and I don't advocate that, but I do advocate for understanding that other people may think different from how you think. Life isn't simple.
Debbie Levy:
It's full of contradictions. We want to
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
believe in right and wrong and clear cut answers and certainty that good and evil can be neatly separated. But the more we look, the more we see that the world exists in shades of gray, messy, layered, and deeply nuanced. For a history writer, that means understanding that figures we cast as villains oftentimes believe themselves to be
Debbie Levy:
the heroes. Everybody is somebody's son, daughter, brother, lover, sister, something. Just let's remember that even our so called enemies are human beings just like us with people that they love or that love them. Debbie Levy has spent her career digging into that tension, the push and pull between certainty and nuance. She's been
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
a lawyer, a journalist, and now an award winning author of books for young readers, including I Dissent, Ruth Bader Ginsburg Makes Her Mark, The Year of Goodbyes, and more recently, A Dangerous Idea, The Scopes Trial, The Original Fight Over Science in Schools. Her work takes on history, justice, and identity, but history in particular is never as straightforward as it seems. We don't all remember it the same way, and recollection itself isn't always black and white. Debbie is drawn to those contradictions, the in between spaces where real understanding happens. In this episode, Debbie reflects on what rabbis and Supreme Court justices have in common, why she is optimistic about students' ability to deal with disinformation, and how books can help kids hold space for complexity.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Plus, a book so sad it was sold with tissues in it, a surprising childhood obsession with Superman, and why her mom taught her that being too good wasn't always a good thing. And in this episode, make sure to stick around to the end for a little bit of bonus content. After our conversation, Debbie reflected on the interview and ended up sharing a story with me via voice memo that expands a bit on her dad's unbelievable but real wartime experience. And I really think you'll wanna hear it too, so stick around until the very end of the episode to listen to that. My name is Jordan Lloyd Bookie, and this is the reading culture, a show where we speak with authors and illustrators about ways to build a stronger culture of reading in our communities.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
We dive into their personal experiences, their inspirations, and why their stories and ideas motivate kids to read more. Make sure to check us out on Instagram for giveaways at the reading culture pod, and you can also subscribe to our newsletter at thereadingculturepod.com/newsletter. Alright. On to the show. Hey, listeners.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Are you looking for a fun, easy way to track your reading and earn cool rewards? Well, meet Beanstack, the ultimate reading app used by a community of over 15,000 schools, libraries, and organizations nationwide. Are you an avid reader? Check with your local library to see if they offer Beanstack for free. A parent, ask your child's teacher if the school library already uses Beanstack.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
And if you are an educator searching for a fresh alternative to accelerated reader, Beanstack is the perfect tool to cultivate a thriving reading culture. Ready to turn the page? Visit beanstack.com to learn more. Let's start with what growing up in the suburbs of Washington DC, my own city, was like.
Debbie Levy:
My world was, I think, pretty ordinary in Silver Spring. I have an older sister. My father was older than everybody else's father, thirteen years older than my mother. We could play outside and not have the parents watching. So there was lots of outside play, marbles on the sewer top, hide and seek, baseball.
Debbie Levy:
And especially with one neighbor, one girl across the street, a lot of comic book trading. I really like Archie and Veronica comics and was a great fan of Superman and Superboy. We didn't live in walking distance to the library, to the Silver Spring Library which is still there and I was just, well, was nighttime so I didn't go in, but I was just next door at missus k's Toll House.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Oh, yeah. Which is no longer missus k's Toll House.
Debbie Levy:
Yes. But it looks exactly the library looks exactly as it did when I used to go there Very frequently, probably every ten days, and you could take out endless numbers of books. I mean, everybody knows this, but when you're a kid, it's just a huge treat. I was a voracious reader, but not very wide ranging. I love Nancy Drew books.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Oh,
Debbie Levy:
really? I love the All of a Kind Family books. And I just went back and read one yesterday. And it's interesting. Really, I realized I really don't remember what was it about it that I loved so much because the all of a kind family, it's a Jewish family.
Debbie Levy:
They live on the Lower East Side Of New York City. It takes place in 1912. At least the first book takes place in 1912. And they have very little to do with my own family, which is Jewish because we weren't Lower East Side New York people. We weren't a big family that was very tied into all of the holidays.
Debbie Levy:
But I just felt it was a very warm book, a very warm series. So that must be what it was. Mhmm. And also the ability to read a book set in, as I said, the first book is in 1912, and feel like I recognize those kids and those parents and the other adults in the neighborhood. And it was so long ago as in olden times.
Debbie Levy:
And that really made an impression on me. Or I guess really made me realize what a book could do. I shouldn't feel close to these people from olden days and yet there I was feeling that way. We talk a lot
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
on this show about books power to build empathy in unexpected ways, whether between people from different backgrounds or as Debbie found in her childhood reading, people from different generations. But it wasn't just in fiction that Debbie found those connections across history. She also found them in rich living color from her own family members.
Debbie Levy:
My mother used to like to tell stories of growing up in Washington. She was very social and going to parties and traveling down when she was a little older to the University of Virginia where I ended up going to college to undergrad because she had a boyfriend down there and how much she loved Charlottesville. She told stories like that. My grandmother told some great stories because she would tell stories from really the olden days, like from the funny guy days, from the from the all of a kind family days back in Poland. When Poland would going back and forth between being Poland and being Russia and how sometimes her family had to quarter troops, Russian troops in the house just because people used to have to.
Debbie Levy:
But she also told great great stories about her father who was a dentist in, you know, the early nineteen hundreds complete with photographs. For example, I have a photograph of him in his office and you see the drill, you know, for drilling your teeth. It's operated by a foot pedal Oh. To make it to make it go.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
You know, you write a lot about history. So I guess I'm not surprised that history was like so present in your life, you know, in your everyday life. But it really comes through obviously in your writing, and not all of it, but definitely, in a dangerous idea. In your most recent book, there's this sense of, like, looking back and, like, examining or reexamining history. And I'm hearing that thread when I hear you talk about your own family, and it's so interesting because you grew up with a lot of generations near you.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
And guess, a unique way of growing up and hearing these stories of the past and being more immersed in that and not just in your own present moment. You know?
Debbie Levy:
You are right. And just thinking about it as you're speaking, I'm aware of how I was aware of history. I felt when I was growing up like, yeah, World War two, that was although, of course, you know, I wasn't born, but it just felt very present. And yes, it's because of my mom and her mom. But I'm telling you, even like the civil war in this country where I had no people.
Debbie Levy:
Right? That felt not present, but oh, accessible, I should say, and of interests.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah. On the topic of your mom, something I've been thinking a lot about is that, you know, there's a lot written about kids of Holocaust survivors or written even, like, by kids of Holocaust survivors and what those households are like. And, you know, it's different when you think about somebody whose parent escaped like your mom did escape Nazi Germany before the Holocaust happened. And I was just wondering if that was something, you know, you talked much about growing up.
Debbie Levy:
So we didn't talk about her experience that much. Of course, we did much later when I wrote the book about her, The Year of Goodbyes. But my mother turned out to be this life loving, fun, outgoing person. And was it because of her experience or is that just who she is? I think it's a combination of both.
Debbie Levy:
And I really, maybe I wasn't so aware of it at the time, but in looking back at our life and at her life now, I see this person who was so interested in other people. So what I got from that is an openness to other people. Only she was much better at it than I was, at least for many years. I find myself now being more that type of person. And I think if I were to psychoanalyze her a little bit, I think I would say that she came to this country from Germany with an accent, wearing the wrong clothes, eating the wrong lunch, And she first lived well, she first lived here in Washington DC with a wealthy aunt who said, if you stay with me, life's gonna be good.
Debbie Levy:
Of course, that's not what she wanted to do. So she left to live in New York City with the rest of the family once they found an apartment with a bedroom. I think there was one. But when she was in New York, so that was really her first semester here in this country. She gotten so many scrapes with other kids.
Debbie Levy:
She was very feisty. You're gonna make fun of me for the way I talk. I'm gonna have a fist fight with you in the schoolyard. And I know this is true not so much from her, but after I wrote something about her and and it was published in the Washington Post, before I wrote the Year of Goodbyes, I got a letter from her former teacher here in town after they moved to Washington at Paul Junior High Wow. Who said, I remember your mother, Utah.
Debbie Levy:
She got many a scrape in the schoolyard here. My head exploded. But back to New York, when she was really literally just off the boat, the one person who didn't make fun and who was kind to her was Mae Corbett. A girl who sat in the back of the classroom with my mother and who apparently, based on what my mother told me and based on what Mae wrote in her autograph album compared to what the other kids wrote, Mae was just kind and interested in my mother as a person and apparently listened to her as best she could decipher what my mother had to say. And Mae was in the back of the room with my mom because Mae was the African American kid in the class.
Debbie Levy:
And Jordan, that experience stayed with my mother forever. What does it mean to listen to somebody who needs to be listened to? And of course, there's also what does it mean to both be kind of the outcasts in a classroom? Debbie's mother,
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
a refugee from Nazi Germany, knew exactly how much those two experiences meant. That lesson passed down to Debbie became a core part of who she is. It's one thing to form an opinion and to take a side, but before you do, you have to listen and you have to truly understand.
Debbie Levy:
It is a positive thing, I think, to realize how important it is to listen to people and to be open to people. And I should say that the other person who had a great influence on me in those early days was her mother, my grandmother, who spoke in a different accent, a Polish accent because that's where she was from originally. And my grandmother too just, they just both loved life. They were so grateful to be here in this country and they just were open to people and to living. It was a really these were really good models.
Debbie Levy:
Well, anyway, there had been a birthday cake. Auntie Chris had made it too with frosting and candles on it. Barbara Buckingham had given Helen a game of parcheesi, which was fun to play because they tried it out after summer. If only there was someone else besides Barbara to play it with though. Barbara wasn't really much use.
Debbie Levy:
She kept saying, I do like this game I gave you, don't you? And finally, when Helen got tired of saying yes and said no and shoved the board over so the round colored counters danced out of their places, Barbara began to cry like a baby and said she wanted to go home. That was the trouble with Barbara. She was always like that. Of course, she was pretty with long curls like Susan's, only not quite so golden and she was nearly a year younger than Helen and went to a private school.
Debbie Levy:
What was more, she was spoiled and had what Helen's father had once called a sheltered life. It was true that Barbara's mother never would let her do exciting things. She couldn't even ride her bicycle except around the block. But then Barbara never wanted to do much because she was scared to cross the road. It was a great pity.
Debbie Levy:
Still, Helen had lived with the Buckingham's for a while until auntie Chris had come and now that Helen had turned into the funny guy at school, Barbara was her only real friend and true friendship was a serious thing. You had to put up with a great deal for the sake of friendship.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Debbie's passage is from the funny guy by Grace Allen Hobart published in 1955. Debbie felt a keen connection with the character of Helen, the girl who was open enough to appreciate Barbara despite all those oddities and differences. At its core, the funny guy deals with the ambiguities of friendship and of being an outsider in a way that feels as applicable to Debbie now as it did decades ago.
Debbie Levy:
Everything about that book to me then and now, because I did reread it last week, it is contemporary. The way the funny girl feels about being an outcast. How angry she is at the people who make fun of her. Oh, just all of her adventures. She gets in lots of trouble.
Debbie Levy:
Helen is the odd girl out and it's because, you know, in part kids are cruel and Helen does some odd things, but Helen does some odd things because something has happened to her. So I wasn't the odd girl out when I was a girl, but I also wasn't the cool girl. So my heart went out to Helen. I also appreciated her and still do her hijinks. They kinda reminded me of what many years later my mother used to say, I have two boys.
Debbie Levy:
And, you know, sometimes they would my boys were good, but they weren't that good. You know, they would get in trouble. My mother would say, oh, Debbie, you don't want him to be too good. I guess it's a way of saying you want him to have some spirit.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah. That's right.
Debbie Levy:
Yeah. So I love this book and upon rereading it, I loved it all the more. It has stood the test of time for me because of the I think you could hear, I hope, there's a poignancy and then there's humor. All wrapped up really on every page. All of her adventures just felt so contemporary to me.
Debbie Levy:
And again, a book from olden times. And in your home, did you
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
know you wanted to write? Like, I feel like there's two kinds of authors. There's authors who discover it later on and everything, oh, was telling me, oh, yeah. That makes sense. You know?
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Or you were just kind of always writing, journaling, doing things growing up, and I'm wondering which or some other option that was for you.
Debbie Levy:
When I was a girl, I knew I really wanted to write. Although, if you then look at the arc of my life, I didn't come back to writing for many many years. I didn't grow up and become a writer until I'd grown up and done other things. I kept a diary, but it was you can't say I really journaled. I wasn't that interested in, I guess, in my own life and what I was doing.
Debbie Levy:
My own my diary is one of those diaries that has five years on each page and you have about five lines for each day. But what I did was write books, picture books. And I was very influenced by the Scholastic Book Club that we got to engage in at school. Yeah. You sent in your money and you got your books and that's where I got the funny guy from.
Debbie Levy:
We can fast forward to many years later when I did finally become a writer. And my first book that was in the Scholastic Book Club was the one young adult novel that I've ever written called Imperfect Spiral. And I just was so happy that it was taken by the Scholastic Book Club. And since then, they've taken a couple others. But not only that, Imperfect Spiral was tear jerker of the month Oh.
Debbie Levy:
Back in 02/2013 and 02/2014. And if you ordered Imperfect Spiral, you also got a special little package of tissues to wipe your tears.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Get out of here. I love that.
Debbie Levy:
Yes. As you were reading my book. Now, I'll tell you another great thing about my mom and that is that she saved several of my picture books. And you can't see them here on the podcast.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Right.
Debbie Levy:
But when I go into schools and show them You bring them? Yo, absolutely. Absolutely. In part because if kids look at my little books from then Mhmm. They know that they too can grow up and become authors if I do.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah. It's such a cool thing about now, like, just author visits and the idea that just being a writer feels like possible. You know? Because I think in those Yeah. It just felt so but sounds like you actually thought it might have been possible when you were younger.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
That possibility looked very promising for Debbie in college where she wrote for the school paper, founded a magazine, and dreamed of reporting as an overseas journalist like Laura Lewis. But then abruptly, she headed to law school incredibly not due to the pressure from her parents.
Debbie Levy:
A friend was taking the LSAT and so I did too. And I did really well. And my family, our family, we had no lawyers. I have to tell you, I didn't even know what lawyers did. So I applied to law schools because I was aware that you could have a law degree and do other things with it.
Debbie Levy:
So I thought I'm gonna go get a law degree and, you know, I can still be a writer. I can still
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
be Laura Lewis. Debbie earned her law degree and a master's in politics and then went on to jobs in the senate, at a law firm, and eventually as chief editor at a legal journal. It was all worlds away from children's books, And yet, she was honing the skills that now make her stand out as an author.
Debbie Levy:
You know, people like to make fun of legalese and how lawyers write and, you know, how poorly they write. And it is true. There is legalese, you know, bad writing, writing that obfuscates. Right. But there's also very good writing that you can learn and do in law.
Debbie Levy:
It's not like writing for children, but you have to create a narrative if you're writing a brief. If you're, you know, writing a brief to file in a court, even if you're writing a memo on something for a client, it's best to create a narrative. What's the story here? The other thing that was so drilled into me was the importance of exhaustive research. Not so exhaustive that you never get to the end because that can happen too.
Debbie Levy:
Whether you're a lawyer or a writer, you can just be researching and and never get around to actually writing what you need to write. Yeah. If you're going to be asserting something, your sources should not only be reliable, but they should be duplicative.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Okay. If you know that Debbie's breakout picture book was her 2019 bio of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, then you're probably thinking, well, this must have been an easy career transition from legal eagle editor to supreme court biographer. But the truth, as usual, is messier. Debbie actually wrote nonfiction school books for fifteen years before I Dissent finally dropped. And although she admires RBG's accomplishments, she doesn't admire the way that legal training teaches people to approach disagreements as zero sum.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
As in our side is right, their side is wrong, and there's no room for middle ground.
Debbie Levy:
You can't say I burst on the scene.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
No. But I think people think that sometimes. You know what I mean? It's like you'll have this one I'm guessing for you, it'd be ear of goodbyes, but also, like, I dissent was, like I dissent. You know, was probably, like so I think a lot of times people do have that impression much like with any profession anywhere.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
It's usually people have been plotting along and then, you know, have been working hard and have a moment and
Debbie Levy:
It's true.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
People who know you know you've been working along and people who don't think, where'd she come from?
Debbie Levy:
Yes. Right. Oh, oh, she wrote a book about Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Oh, yeah. Write about RBG, and then you get to know. Like like although I am curious, how did that come to be? Like, you just knew about her or wanted to or is it just your curiosity, which I guess it's like coming to fruition again?
Debbie Levy:
I knew about her. And this was the time when there was already I don't know if it was yet called the notorious RBG blog. It it started as a blog.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
It was like around that time everything was happening. Yeah.
Debbie Levy:
Well, because she was I mean, things were happening and she was writing and voicing some important dissents. And there was an editor at Simon and Schuster who was also interested in Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And there was no book for well, there was certainly no picture book about her. I'm sure there was a school and library book about her. So, you know, my agent knew that I would just love to write this book and she like rushed to me.
Debbie Levy:
I mean, mostly, she's in California. I'm on the East Coast. So mostly, we go back and forth by email and text. And just as fast as I could wrote a proposal, but I'm talking about like an email proposal, which is not usually how you'd Right. Get a picture book published.
Debbie Levy:
Sure. Usually, you write the whole thing. But I was so excited and I this idea for of descent as the through line came to me very quickly. And my agent loved it. My editor loved it.
Debbie Levy:
And we were off and running. Oh. It was a great experience as you can imagine.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah. I mean, when you think about that through line, obviously, in in her life, do you see that, like, parallel, or do you see, like, a seeking looking for truth, looking for right and wrong? Do you are you also, like, very deep in your convictions, would you say, in that way of like having a strong sense of what is, you know, right and wrong?
Debbie Levy:
Well, that's an interesting question to ask me because probably one of the reasons that I wasn't meant to be a lawyer or at least a litigator is that I tend to focus on both sides, not one side. And I actually think that in at least some of my writing, I am presenting the notion that it's very rare for a person to just be one thing, good, bad, not unheard of. But it's rare. And most issues, most things that matter are not so black and white. And this is not to say I know I realized that that can sound wishy washy and a lack of conviction.
Debbie Levy:
And I would not describe myself that way and I don't advocate that. But I do advocate for understanding that other people may think different from how you think and that issues can be frequently complicated. There are multiple sides. Not to say that we shouldn't take sides, and there's a famous quote by Elie Wiesel that says, we must always take sides. To not take sides in the face of oppression is to side with the oppressor, not the victim.
Debbie Levy:
But before you take sides, you really wanna see all of the sides. This has been on my mind because, well, apart from just everything in the world. But for example, in writing a dangerous idea about the scopes trial, I hope I enable the readers, kids and adults to see that even William Jennings Bryan who is I don't wanna say the bad guy, but who is the person who spreads nonsense about evolution, makes things up about science, is just he is the disinformation spreader of his day when it comes to science and evolution in particular. But there are multiple facets to him. And if you don't understand that, you're not gonna understand, for example, how he came to be so powerful, how as a speaker, as an entertainer, oh my gosh.
Debbie Levy:
I mean, it's like he created his own social media platform, if that sounds familiar to you.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
That's true. You did like, when I read it, unless you know history. You don't necessarily know when you're reading it who's going to be, which lawyer, whose background you're reading about as you're sort of like, it could unfold as a mystery to you. But I I literally went back and checked to see because it's a very positive portrayal of him, you know, or you you see these sides to him
Debbie Levy:
Early on.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Early on. I'm like, wait. Hold on. Let me go back. Let me double like, check my notes, you know, of what I remember of the trial.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah. But you are presenting
Debbie Levy:
That's right.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Like, people believe what they believe for any reason.
Debbie Levy:
Yes. And I don't think you can really fight disinformation unless you know where it comes from.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Y'all remember at the top of the interview when I said that Debbie called me to share some additional thoughts? Well, this is one of those places, and she sent me this voice memo that I really wanted to include.
Debbie Levy:
I am gently trying to show kids and adults that there's usually more to know. Our media environment, our political polarization, our social splintering, I'm afraid they all contribute to this sense that the way to engage in debate is to body slam those we disagree with. I wish I had a good suggestion for how to improve on this culture. My one small proposition is that we all read more broadly. And in my opinion, we should prioritize sources that include curation, you know, editing.
Debbie Levy:
I also hope readers of all ages come to understand the allure of disinformation, especially when it simplifies difficult questions and debates. Look, if something sounds deliciously outrageous, investigate further. If you hear or read something from one source, don't stop there.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
That misinformation is not new. It's always been there, woven into the histories we write and the stories we pass on. And I wondered if as a writer for children, Debbie thought her readers were able to separate the true stories from the dishonest ones. Do you feel like when you're speaking with do you have any, like, I guess, examples maybe of when you're speaking with kids? Because I think kids sometimes, they go from having, like, the greatest amount of curiosity ever to, like, high school where they really know everything and maybe have a strong conviction, but not as well researched.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Especially in today's day and age, you know, you really have to, like, be so careful. Have you sort of found any interesting conversations with kids around that area of, like, uncertainty or, like, holding that space for uncertainty?
Debbie Levy:
I think that in elementary school, kids hold the space for uncertainty. That's a nice way to put it. And then I found, like most recently, I did something at a local high school with a dangerous idea, and it was gratifying to see that as well among the high schoolers that I was speaking to. Everything was up in the air when you're in middle school. One day, you're gonna think you know everything and the next day, you're gonna think you don't know anything.
Debbie Levy:
So as long as we keep having books and teachers and conversations about the complexity of the world with these students and let them talk among themselves, then I'm not too worried about that interregnum in between elementary school and high school.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
What made high the high school visit gratifying?
Debbie Levy:
I just felt sort of a leaning in type of interest, which, you know, you never know whether to expect that when you're talking about historical events. That alone made it gratifying.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Oh my gosh. I can imagine. And to that point, I know that you got to do a lot of school visits with your mom around your book, The Year of Goodbyes, which if we haven't mentioned it, it was written about her experience the year before escaping Nazi Germany. And I don't know. You must have some interesting stories from those visits.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yes.
Debbie Levy:
You can imagine being in a classroom with my mother. She didn't wanna do the presentation. I would do a presentation about the year of goodbyes. And then when it comes to question time, of course, some kids wanna know about being a writer. But really, all the hands would go up to ask my mother questions like, it was always somebody asked, did you see Hitler?
Debbie Levy:
And of course and the answer, I shouldn't say of course, but the answer was yes. We had to go on a field trip downtown where he was giving a big speech at a big rally and there he was way off in the distance. I think the kids found that very satisfying. Really a piece of history Yeah.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
That, you know, my mother represented. Debbie's work encourages all of her readers to stay curious, to embrace the gray areas. And she reminds us that both things can be true. That complexity doesn't weaken conviction, it deepens it. When you're writing, are you sort of always thinking about if you're writing about something of the past, are you always thinking about its application to the present?
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Obviously, you had the epilogue and a dangerous idea that does sort of point to that. But are you sort of considering that people look back a little bit to be able to better understand our our current times?
Debbie Levy:
Always. Always. I don't think I would write a non fiction about the past, about history, or historical figures if I couldn't bring them to the world of our of readers today. Yes. In a dangerous idea, several years ago, I wrote this book called Soldier's Song about this thing that happened after one of the worst battles.
Debbie Levy:
Of course, they were all terrible. Of the civil war in Fredericksburg when the two sides, the confederates were on one side of the Rappahannock River, The union soldiers who had lost were on the other, and they hated each other. They just had this terrible, awful, bloody battle, and the union lost. And then, you know, at night, somebody started playing the greatest pop song of the day, Home Sweet Home, which I won't sing for you. You can't though.
Debbie Levy:
No. And then the other side joined in. And at the end, there's cheering. And, you know, earlier in the day, they were killing each other. And the next day, they were gonna be back to wanting to kill each other again.
Debbie Levy:
And even that, I mean, I very much had today's readers in mind because really one of the points I wanted to make in writing that story is that everybody is somebody's son, daughter, brother, lover, sister, something. Just let's remember that even our so called enemies are human beings just like us with people that they love or that love them. That may not sound like something that has anything to do with this story, A Soldier's Song, but it has everything to do with it. And I think it's very plain in that book, this point that I'm trying to make. I was
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
just wondering if there have been any like moments that kinda stand out with kids or, like, with any of your readers that bring things full circle for you or have sort of make you realize that, oh, yeah. They did they did get what I was trying to do with this having things echo or rhyme with the present.
Debbie Levy:
I would say that the school visits that I did with Ida sent Ruth Bader Ginsburg makes her mark brought that home. Now, is it because a lot of the kids already knew about RBG from their own parents? There may have been some of that. But, you know, I like to think that the book with its repetition, with its theme of it's okay to disagree. Disagreeing, not doing something that you don't wanna be doing because it's wrong, doesn't make you a bad or a disagreeable person.
Debbie Levy:
And the kids, I mean, I I can't think of one particular school visit where I thought, oh, this is so great. They really get it. Because honestly, they all got it.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah.
Debbie Levy:
They all got it. I think in part because for kids, I mean, you're always disagreeing when people are telling you to do things.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
They're like, I dissent every day. I never I relate.
Debbie Levy:
Yes. Yes.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
And so
Debbie Levy:
then to see that somebody who turned it into making good for the world at large, it's very exciting. And so not only was did I have this sense of, oh, yeah. They really got it. I also would have the sense of excitement because they were excited too. Yeah.
Debbie Levy:
So there's my school visit story and and gratitude.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah. I like that. And it is true that I could see how that would relate to all kids too. Yeah. It's funny.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
They're like, oh, yeah. This is this works for me. This is what I'm doing all the time.
Debbie Levy:
Yes.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Do you feel like elements of your, Jewishness, your values, or what have you inform your writing or the way in which you approach your the writing, your topics, anything like that?
Debbie Levy:
Yes. In a word and in a few more words. First of all, with the texts of Judaism. They're all about struggling. I mean, we've got rabbis over thousands of years struggling with what's the right thing.
Debbie Levy:
I mean, sometimes they're struggling with what's the right thing to do about some arcane point of Jewish law that is not relevant to my life. But sometimes, they're struggling about what's the right thing to do and how you treat somebody in one situation or another. That is so very related to this idea that I mentioned earlier of wanting kids and adults to realize the many facets of really almost any reality and of almost any question and issue. Yes. You can come out on a side and generally the rabbis do, but they also very frequently also publish the dissenting rabbi's view.
Debbie Levy:
But struggle first. I think it's positive to struggle with issues and with thoughts. And I think that when you're when I'm writing, I'm also struggling not only to say it in the best words that I can, as clearly as I can, as well also as entertaining because you do want people to keep turning the pages, but also just struggling to get it as right as I can. It has definite roots in the kind of Jewishness that I grew up with or absorbed and really continue to absorb.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Jewish identity isn't one size fits all, and Debbie's reading challenge, illuminating the Jewish experience, reflects that. It's a collection of stories that showcase the richness and diversity of Jewish life.
Debbie Levy:
Being Jewish has always been central to my life, but not in terms of of worship or holidays, but rather in terms of identity. And, you know, how could it be otherwise? Right? My mother is a refugee from Nazi Germany. But it is important to me that people of all ages realize that Jewishness contains multitudes.
Debbie Levy:
There's sorrow. I mean, my mother's story was full of sorrow, but there's also humor and happiness and weirdness and love and yearning and friendship. So for my reading challenge, I offer books that illuminate but don't come anywhere near exhausting, what I consider the multitude of Jewish experience. So my challenge starts with the All of a Kind family from back in 1912, and then I added on three of my own books, which are Jewish stories in part. Jewish.
Debbie Levy:
Yes.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
You can find Debbie's reading challenge and all past reading challenges at the readingcultureculturepod.com. And this week's featured Beanstack Librarian is once again Amy McMichael. Remember that media specialist at Dutchman Creek Middle School in Rock Hill, South Carolina, who is also the lead librarian for all secondary schools within her district. Today, she shares the biggest impact that Beanstack has had on the reading culture in her library. Within that first week, I had kids just popping in to
Amy McMichael:
tell me like, hey. I'm on a reading streak. And I'm like, that's awesome. Like, they didn't want anything else. They just wanted to share their excitement that, you know, I have strength and that's pretty cool.
Amy McMichael:
About a couple weeks ago, I had one individual came in, and she told me she was on a ninety day reading streak, which I just thought was absolutely amazing. It's one of those things that just equalizes the playing field because we're tracking minutes and not the number of books. So for my advanced like, let's say English one students who are doing high school level courses at the middle school level versus my, you know, grade level students or my unique pathway students who are still reading at an elementary school level. Like if they're reading, it counts. Know, in twenty minutes of reading, fifteen minutes of reading, an hour of reading, you know, whatever they can do, that's what's making the difference.
Amy McMichael:
So I actually have one of our unique pathways, one of our special needs students who is has been on my top reader board more than once now because he is consistently reading and getting that time in. And that is not something that probably would have happened in the past without being stuck.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
This has been the reading culture, and you've been listening to my conversation with Debbie Levy. Again, I'm your host, Jordan Lloyd Bookie, and currently, I'm reading Intermezzo by Sally Rooney and The Birchbark House by Louise Erdrich. If you enjoyed today's episode, please show some love and give us that five star review. It only takes a few seconds and it really helps. This episode was produced by Mel Webb, Jackie Lamport and Lower Street Media and script edited by Josiah Lamberto Egan.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
To learn more about how you can help grow your community's reading culture, you can check out all of our resources at beanstack.com. And remember to sign up for our newsletter at the readingculturepod.com forward slash newsletter for special offers and bonus content. Thanks for listening, and keep reading. Hey. Thank you for sticking around to hear this bonus content.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Debbie talked a lot about her mom in this interview and referenced her dad and his ship being torpedoed. But we didn't get into it at the time, and Debbie wanted to add some color there. I'm so glad she did. And after listening to these voice memos from her, it is no surprise that Debbie is a student of history.
Debbie Levy:
My dad had, and now I have, a fantastic scrapbook of his time aboard a destroyer escort that crossed the Atlantic on route to the Mediterranean with a convoy of other ships. What makes the scrapbook fantastic is that it's filled with glossy eight by tens taken by a well known war photographer named Art Green, who was embedded with the convoy. My father was the pharmacist made on board, not because he was a pharmacist or doctor, but because that was where his interest lay. In exchange for letting Green use the Sick Bay as a make shift photography darkroom, dad received from the photographer prints of his pictures, some of which became iconic and which we have in this scrapbook. The ship was torpedoed, essentially cut in half.
Debbie Levy:
Art Green's photos of the destruction are so dramatic. The ship's doctor, at the time of their torpedoing, was on board a different ship in the convoy, leaving my father as the only quasi medical person aboard. So according to the citation that accompanied the Legion of Merit that my father was later awarded, his actions that day saved many lives. Looking through the scrapbook, dad would recall what happened. I was always really proud of him for earning recognition in war for saving life, not destroying life.
Debbie Levy:
And I was in awe of his ability to step up and become a healer because the circumstances demanded it. Also, really, this scrapbook was a type of picture book, a very serious one. Some weeks before my father's ship was torpedoed, the convoy was attacked by German aircraft. Two ships were sunk, one in a horrifying, if spectacular explosion, again, looking at Art Green's photography. Dad's ship rescued as many of the surviving crew members as possible, fishing them out of the water slicked in oil, which we know from Art Green's photography.
Debbie Levy:
Of course, my father tended to the men this time too. But out of the ocean also came two German aviators who'd been part of the attack and whose plane ended up crashing into the sea. These two guys were injured. As my dad told the story, he treated their injuries too. He faced angry objections from some other American crew members who resented patching up enemies who had just inflicted such terrible harm on their fellow Americans.
Debbie Levy:
But he did the right thing. So this idea that no one is just one thing, and the importance of remembering that even those we view as our enemies are also, no matter how far they've strayed, someone's son or brother or lover or friend. It's so important. I remember as a kid looking at the photograph of the two German soldiers, patched up and ready to be transferred to a POW camp on land, thinking how unterrifying they looked. When my father and mother attended reunions of his ship in the nineteen seventies and nineteen eighties, the other former crew members called him Doc, because that's what he became to them there in the Mediterranean.
Debbie Levy:
He would love to have really become a doctor, but that's not the way his life went.
