Jane Yolen Wins 2022 Sophie Brody Medal

The Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) of the American Library Association has announced the winner of the 2022 Sophie Brody Medal is Jane Yolen for Kaddish Before the Holocaust and After: Poems, published by Holy Cow Press.

RUSA press release says of the collection, “Yolen takes the reader on a heartbreaking and breathtaking journey, breaking new ground in the rich, diverse genre known as Holocaust poetry. Using a variety of poetic forms to distill the reality of the Holocaust into words, Yolen’s poems dazzle in their simplicity, power, beauty, and accessibility.”

The annual honor is bestowed by the Collection Development and Evaluation Section (CODES) of RUSA.

This year’s Honorable mentions include Dara Horn, People Love Dead Jews, published by W.W. Norton; Rotu Modan, Tunnels, published by Drawn & Quarterly; Mark Oppenheim,  Squirrel Hill:  The Tree of Life Synagogue Shooting and the Soul of a Neighborhood published by Knopf; and Gabrielle Glaser, American Baby: A Mother, A Child, and the Shadow History of Adoption, published by Viking.

The Sophie Brody Medal is given to encourage, recognize and commend outstanding achievement in Jewish literature.