Become a PJ Library Author or Illustrator

PJ Library and PJ Our Way, initiatives of the Harold Grinspoon Foundation, are Jewish family engagement programs made possible through partnerships with philanthropists and local Jewish organizations. Each month, both programs mail free Jewish children’s books to their participants.

PJ Library and PJ Our Way are available to families who are raising Jewish children from birth through age 12 across North America. They come from many backgrounds – some are intermarried, some have little or no formal Jewish learning, some attend a synagogue and celebrate Jewish holidays, and others may be unfamiliar with Jewish practice alltogether. We love that about our families.

PJ Library chooses 88 titles each year for its North American program, which includes board books, picture books, and easy chapter books aimed at children from birth through nine years. PJ Our Way, the next chapter of PJ Library for older kids, chooses 48 middle-grade books a year aimed at kids ages nine through twelve. That’s a whopping 136 books a year! And that means we need your creative endeavors to keep our program growing.

Both published books and unpublished manuscripts that meet our criteria may be submitted for review. PJ Library and PJ Our Way accept submissions via Submittable only – see our guide for more information. PJ Library and PJ Our Way have similar submission guidelines, but there are a few important differences. See the chart below to understand each program’s process:

Due to the high volume of submissions, we can provide feedback only to those authors whose work will be discussed further. We encourage authors to submit to publishers, agents, and other opportunities while their work is under review. We regret that we are unable to answer queries regarding the status of a submission.

 

Submit Here!

 

We invite trade publishers to submit via this form.

PJ Library and PJ Our Way seeks to represent the diversity of North American Jewish communities through books that share Jewish narratives, values, holidays, and life events. For more about PJ Library and PJ Our Way's educational approach to books, please see the PJ Library Framework and the PJ Our Way Framework.

PJ Library is actively soliciting manuscripts that show and celebrate:

• Greater racial representation, particularly Black, Hispanic, Asian, and Jews of color
• Broader ethnic and cultural traditions, particularly those of Mizrahi and Sephardic communities
• Representation of all Jewish families, including interfaith families and a full spectrum of family structures and compositions
• Representation of LGBTQIA+ people and families
• Inclusion of people with disabilities
• Various Jewish practices
• Contemporary immigration stories

PJ Library especially encourages stories written from #ownvoices perspectives and with #livedexperiences.

Additionally, PJ Library is actively seeking visually-stimulating board books (for ages 0-2) with engaging concepts and plots, and playful prose that introduce children to the diversity of Jewish people, practices, and values.

PJ Library

As PJ Library’s book selection committee reviews books and manuscripts for children from birth through 8 years, it asks:

•  Is this story suited for children from zero to nine years old?
•  Is the text (and illustrations, if available) engaging for young children and their parents?
•  Is the content appropriate to the PJ Library mission? Does the book contain a message of strong Jewish values?
• Will children want to return to this book again and again?
•  Does the book reflect historical Jewish life, contemporary Jewish life, or some valuable aspect of the Jewish experience?
• Will this book prompt family discussions about Jewish topics and lead families to consider making Jewish choices?

PJ Library does not accept manuscripts or books that focus on the Holocaust or the death or decline of family members; those stories that make passing mention of these subjects in text and/or illustration are considered on a case-by-case basis. PJ Library does maintain a list of books about death and dying for families and educators. PJ Library also does not send out workbooks or activity books as part of its regular monthly mailings.

PJ Our Way

PJ Our Way’s book selection committee assesses submissions using the following guidelines:

• The submission should reflect historical Jewish life, contemporary Jewish life, or some valuable aspect of Jewish experience.
• The submission should contain strong Jewish characters and content, where Jewish identity plays a positive role, but we want the Jewish content to be natural – we don’t want to be all message and no story!
• The content needs to be age-appropriate. We avoid content that might make tweens or their parents uncomfortable, which means no alcohol or drugs, no bad language, and any romance needs to be very innocent.
• Holocaust content is generally avoided. We do occasionally include a book that touches on aspects of the subject, like Now and Black Radishes. Please do not submit a book with any graphic material or one that is set in the camps or ghettos. We are more likely to consider second generation or refugee stories with a hopeful message.

PJ Our Way’s high-interest areas include humor, graphic novels, fantasy and magic (with a Jewish twist), series, historical fiction, fun non-fiction, and simple biographies (such as the Who Is/Who Was series from Penguin Random House).

Grinspoon Jewish Story Awards (previously called Author Incentive Awards) recognize the significant achievements of authors selected for the PJ Library and PJ Our Way line-ups. Submissions to both programs are eligible for the award, and new books chosen for either program for the first time will receive this special recognition. The only disqualifying factor is if the story is already available in the trade, prior to being submitted for consideration. These awards are truly awards – they are separate from and in addition to any monies received by the author from a publisher. Stories may be submitted by anyone, including authors, author-illustrators, agents, and publishers. Multiple stories by one author are eligible.

The award amount for all new books selected for both the younger and older programs (regardless of format or genre) is $5,000.

PJ Library: For each text manuscript for a new board book, picture book, early chapter reader, or graphic novel accepted for use in the program, PJ Library will present the author with the full $5,000.

PJ Our Way: For each new complete middle-grade manuscript or ARC accepted for use in the program (including graphic novels), PJ Our Way will present the author with $5,000. PJ Our Way will also accept three complete chapters and an outline as an initial submission. If the Committee decides that this initial submission has potential to be a PJ Our Way selection, the author will receive a partial award of $2,000. Once the completed manuscript is accepted for use in the program, the author will be awarded the remaining $3,000. When a partial award is given, for either authors or author-illustrators, the chair of the selection committee will be in touch to discuss the direction of the work.

These awards reflect PJ Library’s continued commitment to sharing high-quality Jewish children’s books with families around the world while sustaining the critical work of Jewish children’s authors and author-illustrators.

For questions about submitting to PJ Library, our younger kids program, please contact: submissions@pjlibrary.org. For questions about submitting to PJ Our Way, our older kids program, please contact submissions@pjourway.org.

PJ Library and PJ Our Way reserve the right, at their sole discretion, at any time, to change, limit, terminate, modify, or make exceptions to any part of the Grinspoon Jewish Story Award.

Open Applications:

PJ Library Picture Book Summer Camp at the Highlights Foundation

PJ Library invites authors and author-illustrators interested in developing Jewish-themed picture books to apply for the 4th annual Picture Book Summer Camp for five days of inspiration, mentorship, fun, and creativity!

This opportunity is for emerging creatives whose work has not yet been published, or who have no more than one published picture book. The program is open only to those who have not participated in a Picture Book Summer Camp before.

The retreat will run from Sunday, August 24 through Thursday, August 28, 2025, on the beautiful Pennsylvania campus of the Highlights Foundation. Applications are due by midnight (EDT) Sunday, March 16, 2025, and applicants will be notified of their acceptance status by mid-May.

Current Initiatives:

Sephardic Stories Initiative

The Sephardic Stories Initiative is part of PJ Library’s mission to represent the diversity of North American Jewish communities through the books we send to families. With generous support and guidance from the Seattle-based Samis Foundation, and following extensive research and recommendations from a specially formed advisory committee, the Author Stewardship Team invited seven experienced and published authors of Sephardic and Mizrahi backgrounds to create stories inspired by their own experiences over a two year period.

These authors will be granted the opportunity to dig deeper into stories with the support of experts in the field, customized virtual meet-ups, and an Israel experience. They will also act as mentors to emerging Sephardic and Mizrahi authors from spring 2024 through winter 2025.

Illustrator and Visual Storyteller Fellowship 2023-2024

In order to support talented illustrators and creators in developing books with Jewish content, PJ Library was excited to introduce the first international Illustrator and Visual Storyteller Fellowship in 2023. The fellowship offers artists and illustrators the opportunity to create, connect, and explore together through a half-year joint program with the Center for Cartoon Studies (CCS) in Vermont.

This hybrid virtual and in-person model will bring together a cohort of 14 artists for five days at CCS (June 2024) and five days in Jerusalem (November 2024). The remainder of the year will be centered around online sessions that deepen and extend the in-person experience while illustrators work individually and collectively on projects of their choice and inspiration.

Highlights Foundation Scholarship

PJ Library is pleased to announce an annual scholarship program to nurture and develop authors and illustrators of Jewish-themed books for children. Applicants may apply for full and partial scholarships to attend a Highlights Foundation workshop or Personal Retreat.

Applicants should be working on or pursuing a writing or illustrating career with a focus on Jewish themes. A description of your project(s) and interest in Jewish children's literature, as well as a writing or illustration sample should accompany your application. PJ Library is especially interested in supporting new and diverse voices with these scholarships.

Get more information about the scholarship process and apply here.

Previous Initiatives:

Author Israel Adventure

The PJ Library Author Israel Adventure offers experienced and published children's book authors and illustrators an all-expense-paid experience designed to inspire them to bring Israel, Jewish ideas, and diverse Jewish stories to their board, picture, and middle grade books.

These 20 children's book authors and illustrators joined the third cohort of the program in 2022, and embarked on a yearlong creative experience including online meetups, customized sessions, and an eight-day trip to Israel and a writers' retreat in the US in 2023.

During the trip to Israel, authors and illustrators explore the historical and modern country, meet with diverse groups of Israelis, and journey from the barren desert to the Mediterranean Sea. They experience the unique vibrancy of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and take time for reflection, discussion, and writing, often facilitated by well-known local authors. Thanks to generous support from the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies, the 2023 trip was central to a cohort year spanning from October 2022 through October 2023.

Look out for news of our next Author Israel Adventure!

Children's Book Workshop for Visual Storytellers: Exploring Jewish Themes and Content

In the summer of 2020, PJ Library sponsored a week-long intensive workshop to help eight visual storytellers create a draft of a children’s book or graphic novel. The workshop was held at The Center for Cartoon Studies in beautiful downtown White River Junction, Vermont and taught by CCS cofounder James Sturm and other CCS faculty. For more information about other opportunities, please visit the CCS website.

Tent: Children’s Literature

PJ Library proudly sponsored Tent: Children's Literature, a weeklong retreat for emerging and midcareer writers and illustrators of Jewish picture books, early chapter books, and middle-grade fiction. Creators spent a week at the Yiddish Book Center reading and writing, workshopping new projects, and talking about craft and the history of Jewish storytelling. The program offered intensive, multi-day workshops led by prominent critics and editors, as well as seminars on Jewish history, literature, and cultural materials. For more information about other learning opportunities, please visit the Yiddish Book Center's website.