Posted by CBethM on October 22, 2024 in New Book Reviews |
Your name is a joyful song.
And a song is meant to be sung.
It’s first note — wailed or cooed or sputtered
Announcing:
I am here.
I’ve never been here before.
I have never been a child or grandchild or sibling or friend
before, I am brand new
The world is brand new
An old star’s new light
lands on Earth
for the first time.
Your name is a song hum-whispered into your ear
A call back to your ancestors in familiar rhythm
A steady beat echoed toward the future, classically composed
Ancient notes sung again and again and again.
Your name is an anthem, a prayer, a chant
Verses and vows everyone knows
The baal toke’ah’s shofar blow, the muezzin’s minaret cry,
the foghorn’s dampened bellow
A wordless wave surging toward stillness within.
Your name is born of a jam session and serendipity
Stylings and riffs and improvisational jazz
Melodies molded of brass and breath, pizzicato and pizzazz
Plucky poppy plump
arranged anew, a fresh start.
Your name is a conversation
We call, you respond in remembered refrains and impromptu tunes
Symphonized in a pod of whales, a flock of birds, a herd of elephants
Heard of now
that you are here.
Your name is a cacophony of clashes and karaoke
buzzing billboards, neon night lights, colors unknown
Small-town auda-city
Buskers under Broadway, husky blues Sunday
Divas, arias, enigmas, earworms
A whistled one-hit wonder, a catalog of canciónes
Unforgettable. That’s what you are.
Your name is a song you wrote yourself, for yourself.
The key change is the key change,
Clouds lift, raindrops refract, a promise arcs harmoniously across the sky
Striking all the right notes.
***
Awash in vibrant rainbowed watercolors, each page of Joyful Song: A Naming Story by Lesléa Newman and illustrated by Susan Gal evokes the warmth and energy of a lush, bustling city. Saturated brushstrokes layered with perfectly imprecise sketches soak the reader in a spectrum of color and community. I would be absorbed in this book for that alone, but like all outstanding picture books, this one contained layers of meaning and musicality. Lesléa graciously agreed to be interviewed for this review.
Lesléa (“Lez-LEE-uh”) Newman’s story is an invitation to the reader to come along to experience the joy of a baby naming ceremony. Written through a Jewish lens about the traditional naming of a child at the synagogue, the narrative’s universality celebrates a much larger human experience — one that summons attention and asks a community to help welcome the planet’s newest creature. She hopes the message that resonates most with young readers is this: “The world was not complete until you were in it.”
Babies are born every day, but this brand new baby, sister of Zachary (and fur siblings Stella and Bella), daughter of Mama and Mommy, neighbor of Miss Fukumi, Mr. Baraka, and Mrs. Santiago, and congregant of the Rabbi, ultimately brings her community, Jewish and non-Jewish, together, to start her life with “love and tenderness”. It’s “what we all deserve” from the beginning. “We don’t know how they’ll change the world, but they will change the world, with their own acts of tikkun olam [Hebrew for ‘repairing the world’], yet no one is expected to do it alone,” Newman says. “It takes a village to support and hold each other up.”
Writing out of her personal identities and lived experiences as a Jewish lesbian woman in an intercultural marriage, many of her stories feature queer characters or Jewish characters. In Joyful Song: A Naming Story, both are prominent, but normalized. Zachary and his soon-to-be named baby sister have two moms, each read as a different racial identity than the other. Mama and Mommy are not didactic vehicles through which to explain that “sometimes people have two moms” or that “love is love”. Rather Mama and Mommy get to be just that – parents, partners, neighbors, and community members. The inclusivity doesn’t end there. As the family walks to the synagogue for “Little Babka’s” naming ceremony, they spontaneously invite neighbors to join them. In creating this community, Newman operated off of the one rule of improv: never say no, always say “yes, and…”. She wanted the characters to “be open to what the day brings”, so when they are asked to come along, the answer is always “yes”. There’s “lost spontaneity in our culture” and these community characters having “an experience they didn’t plan on…creates a world I want to live in.” Add in a female rabbi, a diverse congregation, more LGBTQIA+ representation, and characters with disabilities, and we get Newman’s and Gal’s depiction of a loving and hopeful society. A world where all are welcome and all are welcomed.
Newman’s story and Newman herself represent the sacred power and beautiful responsibility that come with naming a person, most often your own child, but sometimes…yourself. The name you receive, the name you take, the name you choose is the first song sung about you. For you. By you. There are 8 billion songs being sung on the planet right now, but yours? Yours is unique. Yours is you. And you deserve to have it sung.
Your name is a joyful song.
A lullaby, your story.
Your name sings you home.
From the stars, the subway, the sacred space and embrace of your ancestors.
Your name is the song
you make all your own.
Your name is a joyful song
and songs are meant to be sung.
My name is a joyful song.
Let me sing it to you.
Aliza Werner (she/her; “Aleeza”) is an educator and consultant, children’s literature reviewer, former teacher, and writer. She is the Professional Learning and Social Media Manager at Bookelicious, and works at Milwaukee Film to develop critical media literacy programs for educators, students, and families as a curriculum writer and fellowship facilitator. Aliza is passionate about literacy education as a holistic and joyful endeavor immersed in multimedia, multimodalities, and inclusive, representative children’s literature. Her work is informed by her identity as an interfaith/intercultural Jewish woman, and experience with mental health and acquired disability. Aliza holds a B.S. in Deaf Education from Boston University and M.S. in Curriculum & Instruction from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She was a 2018 Kohl Teacher Fellowship State Finalist and 2021 Wilson Center For The Arts Educational Excellence Award Winner. She and her husband Nick have two kids with paws, Liffey (wheaten terrier) and Poet (mini schnauzer), and reside in Wisconsin. World traveler. Reader. Knitter. AIDS research advocate. Auntie.
English (US) · 