10/10 Recommend inviting Kyle Lukoff to Talk With Your Students

Image by Michaela Kranich

Mirrors, Windows, and Doorways:

Spill the JEWce, my online Jewish YA book club, welcomed teacher, librarian, and author, Kyle Lukoff, to join our circle in September. If you are in a position to welcome and pay an author to come and speak with your community of kids, teens, or adults online or in person, I 10/10 recommend bringing Kyle to talk about his book, A World Worth Saving. Kyle Lukoff joined our circle with warmth, presence, and curiosity. He modeled what it means to listen deeply and respond with heart. Face to face experiences with authors change everything.

I contacted Kyle through his website: https://www.kylelukoff.com/ 

I’m changing the names here, but a few years ago Rose, one of my then 4th graders, entered a conversation in class saying, “What Sadie said is a mirror for me, I see myself in it because . . .” and continued with an insightful reflection about a perspective she and Saidie shared. I’d heard this language before in adult spaces, but I’d not yet heard it brought into a space by a student. Many minutes later the same student responded to something Ben had been talking about. “That’s a window for me, I haven’t had that experience, and I have questions.” I asked Rose where she learned this language of mirrors and windows and she told me about her best ever teacher, her language arts teacher. She explained that in their language arts class discussions they practiced identifying mirrors, windows, and doorways and their teacher stopped them when they responded to one another beginning with “I agree” or “I disagree.” Instead, their classroom practice was to say, “that’s a mirror for me, I have a similar idea” or “that’s a window for me, it’s different from my perspective/my idea.”

Books can be mirrors, reflecting parts of ourselves. Representation in a book means seeing people like yourself—your identity, background, culture, or experiences—reflected in the characters and stories you read. Seeing our own questions, fears, and hopes on the page tells us we aren’t alone and that lives like ours are worth writing and reading about. Books can also be windows, showing us lives that differ from our own. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks z”l wrote, “The supreme religious challenge is to see God's image in one who is not in our image.” Reading widely helps us take that challenge seriously. It builds empathy and stretches our imagination. And sometimes, a book—or a conversation—can be a doorway. A threshold into a larger, more expansive world. In Pirkei Avot 4:1, Ben Zoma asks, “Who is wise? One who learns from every person.” That includes authors, characters, and other readers. Wisdom grows where hearts are open and minds are curious.

I remember reading once of a young child who said that we know how someone feels about us by the way our names sound in their voice. 

Something I noticed about Kyle in the first few minutes after he arrived was that, when talking with my readers, he spoke their names and said things like, “I want to hear your voice.” and “I want to hear what you have to say.” and “Yes. I hear what you are saying.” I love my students. I mean, I love them with my whole heart. I know how someone feels about them by the way my students’ names sound in their voice. I know when someone is curious about what they think. I know when my students are respected. Kyle respects young people. I knew it, and they knew it. Everything after that was icing.

And the icing was so sweet.

Jewish tradition teaches us the importance of words and stories. God, after all, loves stories and our Torah begins not with commandments, but with an origin story. In Jewish teaching, every rule, every law, every drop of wisdom is embedded in a story . . . or it can be.

A World Worth Saving is a great story and I highly recommend it.
You can read my review here.

Kyle is a fantastic guest for any bookclub or classroom.

In Exodus Rabbah 5:9 there is a story about Sinai. As it goes, God’s voice reached each person “according to their ability to take it in.” In our conversation one of the Spill the JEWce readers asked who Kyle wrote A World Worth Saving for. “Everyone,” he said. He went on to explain that he loves it when Jewish readers discover things in the book other readers miss, and he loves it when trans readers discover things in the book other readers miss, and he loves it when readers who are neither Jewish nor trans discover things in the book that make them want to learn more about being Jewish or trans, and he loves it when readers read the book and enjoy it because for them it is just a good book. 

Kyle also told us about where the idea for A’s relationship to letters came from - when you have an opportunity, you should ask him.

Behind every great story is a storyteller. They help us better know ourselves and one another and invite us to walk through doorways we may not have even known were there.

Again, I contacted Kyle through his website: https://www.kylelukoff.com/
If you are able to bring him in as a paid speaker/facilitator, I recommend you do, too.

Happy reading!