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I’m On the ABA’s 2024 Indie Bestsellers List!
If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you’ll recall that one of my “96 Facts” books, 96 Facts About Taylor Swift, made the USA Today Bestseller List last year. Well, more recently (earlier this month, in fact), that same book made the American Booksellers Association’s 2024 Indie Bestsellers List. (It’s number 5 on the “Early & Middle Grade Readers” section.)
So now it’s on two bestseller lists. Which feels great, and it’s a nice way to close out the year.
Check out the full ABA Indie Bestsellers List HERE.
And just in case you’re interested, you can see the 96 Facts About Taylor Swift listing on the USA Today Best-selling Booklist (from December of 2023) HERE. 
You can also buy a copy of 96 Facts About Taylor Swift HERE or HERE.
Oh, and if you’re so inclined, you can check out all of the books I’ve written for Penguin Random House (including all of the other “96 Facts” books) on the “Arie Kaplan” page on the PRH site, which you can see HERE.
Who’s Ready For Some “Potato Pancake” News?
Happy Holidays, everyone! Of course, one of those holidays is Hanukkah. As I type this, we’re smack-dab in the middle of Hanukkah. Well, not exactly the middle. Somewhat past the middle. But not quite the end. It’s eight nights long in total, and tonight is night six. So Hanukkah is still chugging along like a festive frolicking freight train, and that means that this blog post is still thematically relevant…for the next two days. Perhaps I should’ve posted this a few days ago. Oh, well. Better late than never, I guess?
All of the above is a very awkward prelude to this: I wrote a Hanukkah-themed graphic novel for kids called The Day I Became a Potato Pancake, which was illustrated by the super-talented Beilin Xu. It’s out now from Behrman House. The book has been getting mentioned – and reviewed – in a few different publications recently. So I thought I’d mention some of ’em.
Here’s what Publisher’s Weekly said about The Day I Became a Potato Pancake: “This speculative, character-focused graphic novel highlights aspects of Jewish identity and culture through multiple lenses to craft a goofy yet nuanced read.”
Read the full Publishers Weekly review HERE.
PW also included the book on its list of Jewish holiday books for children, which you can check out HERE.
The Day I Became a Potato Pancake was included in Booklist’s Fall Youth Preview for 2024, which you can see RIGHT OVER HERE.
It was mentioned in THIS ARTICLE from Book Riot titled “5 Awesome Jewish Children’s Books About Hanukkah.”
And it was mentioned in THIS ARTICLE from The Jewish Telegraphic Agency on new children’s books for Hanukkah.
Here are some other reviews of the book:
THIS is one from The Texas Jewish Post.
And HERE is one from The Jewish Book Council.
THIS is a review of the book from The Reporter, a publication of the Jewish Federation of Greater Binghamton.
And HERE is one from The Sydney Taylor Shmooze blog.
That just about does it for my press roundup for The Day I Became a Potato Pancake. However…
If you’d like to find out about some of the other Hanukkah-themed comic book stories I’ve written, you can click HERE.
And if you like reading humor pieces, I wrote THIS LIST of Hanukkah-themed horror movie titles (all of which I made up).
Lastly, HERE is a blog post where I talk about a Hanukkah-themed audio script I wrote for Yoto’s 5-Minute Holiday Stories collection (which came out in November of 2023). In that same blog post, I talk about two Christmas-themed children’s books I’ve penned.
I’ll Be at JewCE (Version 2024) TOMORROW!
Tomorrow, Sunday November 10th, I’ll be appearing at JewCE: The Jewish Comics Experience. JewCE is a Jewish-themed comics and pop culture event, and it’s happening at the Center for Jewish History, 15 West 16th Street, between 5th and 6th Avenues, in Manhattan.
I’ll be a panelist on two panel discussions at JewCE:
From 11:30am-12:30pm, I’ll be on a panel called “American (Jewish) Splendor: Celebrating Harvey Pekar and Joyce Brabner,” which will take place in the main auditorium (aka the Leo And Julia Forchheimer Auditorium). Aside from myself, the other panelists are Dean Haspiel, Josh Neufeld, Jeff Newelt, Peter Kuper, and Danny Fingeroth, who will be moderating.
And then, from 1:00-2:00pm, I’ll be on a panel called “Exploring Jewish Humor in Comics,” which will take place in the Kovno-Shavl Room. Aside from yours truly, the other panelists for this one will be Chari Pere, Hilary Price, Terry LaBan, and Uri Fink. Jenny Caplan will be moderating.
For more info on both panels, go HERE.
When I’m not on those panels, I’ll have a table in the Artists Alley section of the convention, where I’ll be signing copies of my new graphic novel, The Day I Became a Potato Pancake, which was written by me and illustrated by Beilin Xu. For a floor plan of the venue, and to find out where (specifically) you can find me, go HERE.
Also, after the convention proper (which ends at 5pm), I’ll be presenting an award at the JewCE Awards, which begins at 6:30pm. For more info on the JewCE Awards, go HERE.
Oh, and in case you’re interested, HERE is my “convention speaker” bio on the JewCE site.
Hope to see you there!
(And if all of this sounds familiar, it’s because I also appeared on a panel at JewCE last year (in 2023), which was the first year of the event’s existence.)
