When I wrote my first two mid­dle grade nov­els, Judaism crept in where I didn’t expect it to. In Side­tracked, Grandpa’s kvetch­ing and greps­ing became a favorite with young read­ers, even at the Chris­t­ian ele­men­tary school in Nashville where Side­tracked was an all-school read. In Upstaged, Shira’s Chi­nese Amer­i­can friend Jason Lee has been to enough bar mitz­vahs that he proud­ly has the first torah bless­ing memorized. 

Cre­at­ing a Jew­ish pro­tag­o­nist in my upcom­ing nov­el, Trou­ble Finds Evie Lefkowitz, was a more con­scious deci­sion. When the book opens, Evie has lost her father, and is fac­ing the humil­i­at­ing prospect of her mom dat­ing Mitchell Mitchell, the assis­tant prin­ci­pal at her mid­dle school. What’s more, she’s been vol­un­teered to tutor Joey Cer­a­co, a boy she hasn’t spo­ken to since their play­dates in kinder­garten — a boy who’s known as trou­ble

In an ear­ly draft of the sto­ry, I made Evie’s father a teacher. But return­ing to the man­u­script a few years lat­er, I real­ized how much rich­er the sto­ry could be if I delved into the places, tastes, col­ors, and feel­ings that made my child­hood — and Evie’s — unique. So, I made Evie the cantor’s daughter.

For me, grow­ing up as the cantor’s daugh­ter wasn’t about being devout or even par­tic­u­lar­ly reli­gious. I was a kid, and the tem­ple was my sec­ond home. I have hap­py mem­o­ries of slid­ing down the pol­ished chrome ban­is­ters in the huge new sanc­tu­ary. I knew where they kept the spe­cial white High Hol­i­day robes, where the youth group teenagers hung out, and where the teach­ers stored the dry, swirly ugiy­ot and warm apple juice we choked down in Hebrew school. I sat with the pro­fes­sion­al choir — none of them Jew­ish except my mom — while they hearti­ly enjoyed their Yom Kip­pur lunch. I knew every­one. Every­one knew me. 

For me, grow­ing up as the cantor’s daugh­ter wasn’t about being devout or even par­tic­u­lar­ly reli­gious. I was a kid, and the tem­ple was my sec­ond home.

In Trou­ble Finds Evie Lefkowitz, I had fun with twelve-year-old Evie’s obser­va­tions of her Jew­ish world. She rolls her eyes at Tem­ple Shir Shalom’s kitschy Shab­bar­be­cues” and its newslet­ter col­umn, Much Ado About Nosh­ing.” She won­ders whether Eliez­er at Hebrew school is Elliot or Zachary in the out­side world. (Spoil­er alert: It’s Liam). But she also finds com­fort hid­ing out in the stained-glass col­ored light of the old sanc­tu­ary, just as I did after my father passed away.

Writ­ing Trou­ble gave me the oppor­tu­ni­ty to cre­ate a pro­tag­o­nist who is total­ly Jew­ish, and total­ly Amer­i­can. It’s an iden­ti­ty that many of us take for grant­ed (despite the many Amer­i­can Jew or Jew­ish Amer­i­can?” youth group debates I attend­ed way back when). But it’s an iden­ti­ty that’s chal­lenged every time some­one wants to paint us as oth­er.” I want­ed my read­ers to know that Evie miss­es her father as much on Thanks­giv­ing and the Fourth of July as she does at Passover seders and Purim. She’s annoyed by kids who think that because she’s Jew­ish she might break into a hora at a school dance, but just as dis­turbed that they think her Japan­ese Amer­i­can best friend would show up wear­ing a kimono. 

Evie’s a lot like me. But the more per­son­al you get in your writ­ing, the more per­son­al it feels when an edi­tor says no. And many did. I can’t say for sure why. There are hun­dreds of rea­sons for no” in the pub­lish­ing world. Evie’s sto­ry has the same humor, and I hope, the same heart as my ear­li­er books. So, I couldn’t help won­der­ing if the dif­fer­ence might be that Evie’s voice is a Jew­ish voice. And per­haps some pub­lish­ers feel that the Jew­ish Amer­i­can voice has already been heard.

Hap­pi­ly, Trou­ble Finds Evie Lefkowitz found its home at PJ Pub­lish­ing. I’m thrilled that Evie will reach so many young Jew­ish read­ers through PJ’s extra­or­di­nary book club, PJ Our Way. And I’m excit­ed that it will be avail­able to oth­ers, out­side of the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty. Because just as it’s cru­cial for all of us to hear the voic­es of writ­ers of col­or, Mus­lim voic­es, Asian voic­es, LGBTQ voic­es, and a thou­sand dif­fer­ent Amer­i­can voic­es, it’s impor­tant for all of them to hear con­tem­po­rary voic­es that are com­plete­ly Jew­ish, and com­plete­ly American.

Book­sellers and librar­i­ans often talk about children’s books as win­dows and mir­rors. I hope Trou­ble Finds Evie Lefkowitz can be both: A mir­ror to kids who have expe­ri­enced a loss like Evie’s, a win­dow to those who haven’t. A mir­ror to a child who is, like Evie, ques­tion­ing the labels that are slapped on us too ear­ly, a win­dow to a read­er who has nev­er met a Jew­ish Amer­i­can. And for all young read­ers, I hope it’s a live­ly, fun­ny sto­ry about a girl cher­ish­ing old mem­o­ries and friend­ships and being open to new ones; a per­son find­ing out that deal­ing with trou­ble might be a nec­es­sary step in grow­ing up.

Diana Har­mon Ash­er is the author of sev­er­al mid­dle grade nov­els, includ­ing Side­trackedUpstaged, and the upcom­ing Trou­ble Finds Evie Lefkowitz. She grew up in Tem­ple Beth-El of Great Neck, where her father was the can­tor. Diana and her hus­band, Hen­ry, have three grown sons and three very adorable grand­sons. They live in Westch­ester, NY, with fre­quent vis­its to their favorite place: Block Island, Rhode Island.