Alan Silberberg is an award-winning author, cartoonist and children’s TV creator, whose latest book is “The Bagel Who Wanted Everything.” This funny, heart-warming story of a plain bagel’s quest to be more is the latest in his series of silly kids’ books about Jewish food; other titles include “P is for Pastrami” and “Meet the Latkes.”
When asked what it’s like to be in his head, Silberberg said, “”It’s like going up a really beautiful hill that sometimes you trip and then fall very fast into a big, splashy pool of chicken soup. I’m up, down, making things up … coming up with characters; it’s a fun life.”
Silberberg said he was one of those kids who was always doodling, but never considered himself an illustrator.
“On the advice of my agent I decided to try to write a picture book based on a silly cartoon, an [animated] Hanukkah greeting that I would send out every year about a Latke family,” he said. “It was really a blessing for me because … I didn’t see a career for this, even though I was a published author.”
Silberberg had previously released three chapter books: “Pond Scum,” “Milo, Sticky Notes and Brain Freeze” and “The Awesome 100% True Adventures of Matt and Craz,” inspired by a love of reading to and with his son.
“I didn’t see picture books as my pathway, but it was so well received,” he said. “[It was] both a traditional Hanukkah story, but really out there and silly and really fun to read aloud.”
Plus, Silberberg loves drawing food!
“It’s certainly more fun to make anthropomorphic characters come alive,” he said. “Drawing a whole alphabet book of Jewish food cartoons … and drawing a latke family and a kid piece of matzah that gets bullied at school.”
Food is a gateway to every kid, every family.
“It’s like a muscle memory for your tummy,” Silberberg said. “There aren’t enough good funny stories about food, especially Jewish food; I have the Jewish funny food niche.”
Silberberg said he cooks, but his recipes are pretty simple: chicken soup, latkes, pasta.
“I don’t have a recipe vocabulary, but I can throw things together and make something tasty,” he said.
Latkes are one of his favorites, so it’s fitting that it was the first book.
“It’s a family tradition in my home to eat them all the time year round,” he said.
Team apple sauce or team sour cream?
“I am team apple sour sauce,” said Silberberg, who dips his latkes in both. “One bite is applesauce, one sour cream and, before I know it, my plate is this white and yellow and pink schmear that I just scoop up and love the mixed flavor.”
Silberberg, who lives in Montreal and is a huge fan of the wood-fired Montreal bagel, said he does not relate to being a plain bagel- “I’ve always been somebody who bucks the trends,” he said. “If you tell me I can’t do something, I will do it and show you how I can do it three different ways.” However, he wanted to create a story for kids to know that it’s fine being plain, or salt or onion.
“This is that story of a bagel who doesn’t get angry about [being plain], but wants to find other things to be, because the world is full of so many wonderful things: Why do I have to be just one?” he said.
The story is about the search for other things, the search to become more, the search to become anything or everything.
“It’s a nice little fable,” he said. “I like it a lot. I’m very proud of it.”
Next up for Silberberg is “The Falafel who Felt Awful,” a book about expressing your feelings and “Dill Is in a Pickle,” about negative self-talk.
“I’m moving away from holidays and into social emotional stuff,” he said. “I just happen to be using these Jewish foods as a way into these stories that are really heart-based.”
Silberberg’s goal for the new year is to keep pushing himself out of his comfort zone.
“I’m in a comfort zone of Jewish food right now, and I’m blessed, I get to make these funny books,” he said. “But I want to, in the new year, push myself beyond Jewish food and see what’s out there as far as my creative storytelling goes.”
There must be other things out there, beyond the Jewish kitchen, right?
“My books allow kids to enter the story and not identify as the kid, but go, ‘Oh, I’m kind of like that bagel,’” Silberberg said. “There’s something safe about … being able to connect with a food and identify with [a food] who has a problem or who is funny or who doesn’t like to play with others.”
That’s a huge part of the food-kid-story connection.
“And you start thinking about eating,” he said. “You think, ‘When we finish this book, maybe we can have a snack.”
He added, “Life is complicated and we’re living in some funny times; comfort comes in many different ways … take care of yourself and eat what makes your tummy happy and makes your head feel better.”
To learn more about Alan Silberberg go to silberbooks.com and follow @alan_silberberg on Instagram.
For the full conversation, check out the episode of Taste Buds with Deb at JewishJournal.com/podcasts.
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For the full conversation, listen to the podcast:
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Debra Eckerling is a writer for the Jewish Journal and the host of “Taste Buds with Deb.” Subscribe on YouTube or your favorite podcast platform. Email Debra: tastebuds@jewishjournal.com.
