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LA JOLLA, California (Press Release)—The 15th Annual San Diego Jewish Book Fair kicks off Family Day on Sunday, Nov. 8, from noon until 4 p.m. The afternoon will be full of a wide range of active fun programs for kids of all ages. This year’s Family Day promises to be bigger and better than ever.
Co-Chairs of Family Day are Heather Maio of Del Cerro, Nomi Levy of University City and Debbie Sweet of Del Mar. Family Day is sponsored by Target, supported by the U.S. Trust Bank of America Private Wealth Management, and underwritten by Dr. Andrew and Edna Viterbi, Sempra Energy and the Gary and Jerri-Ann Jacobs Youth Endowment Fund.
Here are some highlights of the day’s schedule:
· Dramatic presentations by four famous authors, Rob Kurtz (Seamus McNamus: The Goat Who Would be King), David Sacks (Vigfus the Viking), and David Weiss, (Carl the Frog), and Dava Savel (The Town of Zack).
· Tea for Two – An American Girl Tea Party with the newest American Girl doll – 9-year-old Rebecca Rubin, a Jewish-American girl who lives with her family on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
· Ongoing Art Activities throughout the afternoon, including 1) Jewish Origami, 2) Making a paper hat; 3) Creating a bookmark, 4) making a cookie (to eat), and 5) Discovering the art of Roy Lichtenstein with author/artist Susan Goldman Rubin.
Two exciting exhibitions to celebrate the 80th anniversary of Anne Frank’s birth:
· Inside Anne’s House: An Interactive Exhibit , an opportunity to “walk through” Anne Frank’s House and discover on one’s own what it was like to live in the Secret Attic; and
· As Seen Through the Dream of a San Diego Teenager, Zachary Kucinski’s debut of artifacts to fulfill his dream of a World War II/Holocaust Museum in San Diego.
Other Author Presenters include:
· David Ginsburg – Menorah Under the Sea
· Susan Goldman Rubin - The Anne Frank Case: Simon Weisenthal Search for the Truth
· April Halprin Wayland - New Year at the Pier: A Rosh Hashanah Story
For more information, visit the book fair website
Co-chair Debbie Sweet describes Family Day as “a very well-orchestrated three-ring circus. There is clearly something for everyone in our preschool courtyard carnival.” For Sweet, highlights include: the storytellers in addition to the author presenters, the play directed and produced “by kids for kids,” the interactive exhibits Inside Anne Frank’s House: An Interactive Exhibit and As Seen Through the Dream of a San Diego Teenager, the latter presented by Sweet’s 13 year old son Zachary Kucinski, whose debut exhibition of his Holocaust artifact collection is the first step toward the fulfillment of his dream to create a World War II/Holocaust Museum in San Diego.
Family Day Concert with Cara Freedman: The Family Concert/Sing-along from 12 Noon to 1 p.m. will be led by Cara Freedman, a highly acclaimed, award-winning composer of Jewish Youth Theater. She is well known in the local San Diego Jewish community for her innovative theatrical and musical leadership in training young actors and actresses for the past few decades – through SHOW BIS at Congregation Beth Israel and Academy on Stage at the San Diego Jewish Academy. She has written 12 full scale rock musicals, produced The Role Model for National Cable Television, and was featured on CBS’s 48 Hours for her show A Sign Upon Your Hand. Besides serving in Congregation Beth Am’s Rockin’ Shabbat band, she is married to Marc Grossman and is proudest of her very best production of all – her triplets, Evan, Jordan and Alexa.
Award Winning Hollywood Screenwriters Bring Their New Series of Worthwhile Children’s Books to San Diego –
Rob Kurtz, David Weiss, David Sacks and Dava Savel—Could you be enchanted by Seamus, a very unlikely kingoa goat? Seamus McNamus: The Goat Who Would Be King reluctantly takes up the crown to save his barnyard friends from the slaughterhouse and proves that sometimes it's the most unexpected hero who saves the day.
Or, maybe you can you identify with Zack, an all-boy boy who has three annoying sisters who insist on being girls, and in his room, no less! Desperate for a break, he transforms his school’s jungle gym at school into the new Town of Zack he can finally have his own space – until the other kids at school want to join Zack's town.
Would you laugh at young Vigfus the Viking whose parents accidentally sail their longboat into New York Harbor? When this fierce, ill-mannered, and very poorly behaved Vikings finds that pillaging the school bus and capturing the cafeteria monitor is something the natives of this strange island don't do, he learns a new culture in order to gain the very thing he wants most: a friend.
Or maybe you’ll enjoy how Carl the Frog searches for a friend - but his outlandishly long tongue (and even larger appetite) always sabotages his plans. But when a wise old kingfisher sets his sights
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on Carl as his next meal, this hungry frog finally learns that it's better to have friends than to eat them!
These four new dramatically character-driven tales from Worthwhile Books are all written by Hollywood celebrities who are well known for their TV and film screenwriting. They are no strangers to interactions with young audiences as they are all parents as well as writers. All four authors are coming to Family Day at the San Diego Jewish Book Fair on Sunday, November 8, to share their characters’ adventures with local young readers.
Rob Kurtz (Seamus McNamus: The Goat Who Would Be King ) has written and produced more than a hundred hours of television comedies, including the People’s Choice Best Comedies Cosby and Grace Under Fire, as well as Boy Meets World and Baby Blues.Kurtz recently wrote the Fox animated film Everyone’s Hero, starring Whoopi Goldberg and Rob Reiner. He lives in New York with his wife, Elizabeth, and their kids Basia, Sarah, Ariella, CJ, and Avi.
Upon graduating from Harvard College with a degree in government, David Sacks moved to Los Angeles and began writing for television. He has written for many television shows, including The Simpsons (for which he won an Emmy Award), 3rd Rock from the Sun (for which he won a Golden Globe Award), Malcolm in the Middle, and The Root of All Evil. David is married and raises his family in Beverly Hills, California.
Dava Savel’s credits include Ellen (for which she won an Emmy Award and a Peabody Award), Dream On, Grace Under Fire, Dinosaurs, Will & Grace, Dharma & Greg, and That’s So Raven (for which she received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Children’s Program). Dava lives in Sherman Oaks, California with Roger; her daughters, Miranda and Lucy; their pug, Millie; and their cat, Sebastian (who makes Roger sneeze).
David N. Weiss has coauthored several feature films, including the Academy Award–nominated feature Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius; Shrek 2; Rugrats in Paris: The Movie; Are We There Yet? and Clockstoppers. He received an Emmy nomination as one of the head writers of the Rugrats television series, for which he co-wrote the acclaimed episode A Rugrats Chanukah. He is currently working on the family comedy Traded and the live-action/computer-graphics adaptation The Smurfs. A graduate of the University of Southern California’s School of Cinema-Television, Mr. Weiss lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Eliana, their children, Channah and Sammy, plus two cats, two birds, a tortoise, and Sandy the dog.
With their combined experience writing, acting and producing in Hollywood, this quartet of young artists promises a very entertaining afternoon for kids of all ages. At an Irish-themed lunch at Puck Fair modeled after the location of the Seamus McManus folktale, Rob Kurtz commented about how flexible he and his fellow authors were when it came to being edited: “We’re all network writers, We’re prepared for notes.” In fact, children’s book authorship has an advantage over the usual writing for Hollywood celebs. “Unlike sitcom stars, children’s book characters are a delight to work with!”
As Seen Through the Dream of a San Diego Teenager -San Diego Bar Mitzvah Boy Zachary Kucinski Debuts His Personal Holocaust Exhibition
In November 2006, when Del Mar native Zachary Kucinski was barely eleven years old, he came to the San Diego Jewish Book Fair and met Ela Weissberger, a Holocaust survivor of Room 28 at Theresienstadt Concentration Camp.
“She had her yellow star in her shirt pocket [and] I started thinking where my grandfather’s yellow stars could be. [My grandfather] thought that his mom had probably burned their stars when they went into hiding,” explains Kucinski, now 13 years old. At that moment, the young man decided that he wanted his own yellow star in order to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive.
“I finally located a “Jude” from a Holocaust museum that was closing somewhere in France. When it came, I decided I wanted to look for more Holocaust artifacts. Now my collection has grown and my dream is to open a WWII/Holocaust Museum here in San Diego someday. It is important to keep the lessons of the Holocaust alive.”
“Zachary has always been a history buff,” reports Sweet. “When he decided he wanted his own Yellow Star, he did extensive research on line. He came to me and told me that he had found a star from a reputable seller on E-bay, and I was very happy to give him the $500 to purchase that star. But I had no idea how far he would go with this idea!”
After his Bar Mitzvah in 2008, Zachary decided to use his Bar Mitzvah gift money as a fund for purchasing Holocaust memorabilia. According to Sweet, he has very wisely spent down that fund and now has such an extensive collection of Holocaust artifacts that he has created his own exhibition - As Seen Through the Dream of a San Diego Teenager - which will be shown exclusively at the 2009 San Diego Jewish Book Fair from November 5-12 at the Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center in La Jolla.
Zachary’s collection includes the uniform of a prisoner at Auschwitz, another camp’s women’s prisoner dress, yellow stars and other Jewish identification markers, a Nazi camera and some of the photos it took, a book of regulations from Bulgaria during it’s Nazification, and an original canister that held the Zyklon B that was used to gas Jews and other prisoners to death.
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