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Learn a bit more about Amy Meltzer, author of The Shabbat Princess! Our thanks to Amy who sat down to answer our questions.

ChallahCrumbs: Tell us a bit about your book.

Amy Meltzer: Essentially, it’s a story about preparing for Shabbat, and specifically about taking time to make the Shabbat table extra special. A little girl, inspired by her love of princesses, wonders why there is a Shabbat Queen but no Shabbat princess. When her parents encourage her to be their Shabbat princess, helps her parents fancy up the Shabbat table so that it’s fit for both a princess and a queen.

 

CC: What inspired you to write this book?

AM: This book started with a title. As the mother of two daughters who both went through a princess phase (though thankfully one that wasn’t too intense and didn’t last too long) the title just popped into my head one day. It took me years to actually come up with a story to fit the title.

 

CC: How did you get started as a writer?

AM: I’ve enjoyed writing since I was young, but never really wrote any fiction until my first manuscript, which became the book A Mezuzah on the Door. I was teaching first grade at a Jewish day school, and when it came time to teach about the mitzvah of hanging a mezuzah, I discovered there were no picture books on the topic. That inspired me, when I left teaching when my first daughter was born, to take time to try to create the story.

 

CC: What is your work schedule like when you’re writing?

AM: I went back to teaching full time a little over two years ago, when my younger daughter was five. Since then, I’ve had very little time to write. I mostly focus on my blog homeshuling, and typically work on that early in the morning before I wake up my girls for school.

 

CC: What are some of your favorite children’s books?

AM: My kindergarteners always laugh because almost every time I read them a story I say, “this is one of my favorite books.” But it’s true, I have a lot of favorites, even though I’m a pretty tough critic. I love anything by Kevin Henkes. Mo Willems is another one of my idols. As a child I loved the whole series of Oz Books by L Frank Baum. I read them over and over and over.

 

CC: What books are you reading now?

AM: I just finished The Oriental Wife by Evelyn Toynton, and I’m currently reading More All of a Kind Family to my daughters, Ella and Zoe.

 

CC: Tell us what you are working on now.

AM: I’m currently doing a lot of book fairs all around the US to promote The Shabbat Princess, and I’m looking for a home for a book about my dog, Zev, who used to steal the challah off the table before Shabbat, but I’m not working on any stories right now. I just have to wait for the next idea to find me.