Troublemaking: A Conversation with Arree Chung

Today’s conversation is one that I’ve been looking forward to for some time. Richard Michelson is an old friend. If ever you’ve been to the Eric Carle Museum in Amherst, MA, it would behoove you to also check out the R. Michelson Gallery in nearby Northampton. There, located in an old bank, you will find perhaps the finest gallery of fine children’s illustration available to you anywhere in the continental United States.

Rich’s gallery is not his sole connection to children’s literature, of course, and over the years he’s amassed an incredible array of picture books to his name. One in particular caught my eye recently and I’ve been turning it over in my mind ever since. Illustrated by Joe Cepeda, More Than Enough: Inspired by Maimonides’s Golden Ladder of Giving (out now) cleverly incorporates the eight rungs of the aforementioned ladder of giving into its storytelling. The tale itself concerns a child named Moses whose attitudes towards charity change, in time, to a greater understanding of empathy and understanding.

Today, Rich is kind enough to talk to me about the book:

Betsy Bird: Hi Rich! Thank you so much for taking the time to answer my questions today. MORE THAN ENOUGH is such an interesting and clever book, covering something that (prior to reading it) I would have said would have been magnificently different to put in a picture book form. But before we get into any of that, tell us where the idea for the book came from. What is its origin story?

Richard Michelson: Hi Betsy, Lovely to chat with you, as always! And thanks for the kind words.

Three things came together that inspired me to write this book.

#1- Every afternoon when I walk from my gallery to my favorite lunch place (shout out to Paul & Elizabeth’s veggie platter and soup of the day) I pass 4 or 5 people busking or begging for money. One young lady has been on the sidewalk daily for the past two years with a cardboard sign reading ​“Pregnant and Homeless” — the longest gestation in human history. One amiable young man has been asking donations for ​“Black Boys at Risk” for a half dozen years. He waves newspaper clippings and official looking documents. I vacillate between skepticism and belief. I have become friendly with Downtown Dan who lives entirely on the spare change people drop into his guitar case  (which he stores in our stairwell entryway during bathroom breaks and rainstorms). At the end of the day, I’ve watched him happily count out a third of the money collected to donate to those in even greater need. There are other regulars and, of course, some transient and aggressive panhandlers.  I have become fascinated watching parents with children walk the gauntlet. Some give their kids a dollar to drop in various cups, some stop and chat, some pass out slices of pizza. Most look away, tighten their grip on their kid’s arm, and hurry past.

#2-  My wife LOVES to give away money. She does so joyously! ​“The more we give, the happier we become,” she says, quoting Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh. I mostly give as an obligation, and not cheerfully. I wish I were a better person.

#3- I was reading Maimonides (yes, I know how that sounds), the greatest Jewish philosopher of the Middle Ages, and realized he tackled the same issues in the 1100s.

I wanted to create a safe space where parents could approach the topic with their children and begin the conversation about what a fair society would look like So many questions:  How much shall I give? To how many? How often? Am I doing enough? What are we teaching our children as we rush past the panhandlers? Mostly, though, I was talking to myself and trying to understand my own tight-fistedness in light of my wife’s joy in giving. Damn, that is a long answer to your question. Maybe we should end the interview here.

BB: Not on your life, sir. These are the kinds of answers I live for! Now the format of the book is what struck me as particularly unique. You take the eight rungs of Maimonides’s Golden Ladder of Giving and seamlessly integrate them into the story of Moses and his growing understanding of the best ways to give. Did you have a clear sense of how to outline this book from the start or was it a lot of trial and error?

Rich: It was more like trial and error and error and error. I knew I wanted to use the eight rungs of the ladder as my scaffolding (I am on the first rung, where you give less than you should, and reluctantly, but I console myself that I have at least started the climb). The trick, of course, is how to hide the ladder so the story does not become didactic—no one likes to be lectured by parents or authors. The first draft, I confess, was written as a rap song.  The next draft opened with Moses entering first grade – then a year per page turn—until he graduates college and opens his own business.  Yes, it was as unwieldy as it sounds. Next, I had his mother tragically die and his father turn to drugs and sleeping on the streets (I kid you not).

BB: Wow. Just trying to imagine Joe Cepeda trying to illustrate THAT. Of course, the concept of giving the person who is receiving the giving their dignity is not a concept I’ve seen in children’s picture books as much as I would like. Often we see these stories of the unhoused where they fall over themselves in gratitude when someone gives them something. The notion of dignity never seems to play into it. Your book (alongside last year’s The Midnight Mitzvah by Ruth Horowitz) stresses this sense of empathy in a more complex and interesting way. Was that important to you when as you made this book?

Rich: I had a friend visiting, who would not give to the homeless because “they will only spend it on drugs or liquor.” A reasonable objection that I have used myself. That night we went out for dinner, after which– guess what? Yup. He spent his money on drugs and liquor, but for himself.  I wondered what people smarter than me would think of that. In 1791, the writer Samuel Johnson, in answer to the same dilemma said, ​“Why should the poor be denied such sweeteners of their existence?” In 2017, Pope Francis said, ​“Give them the money, and don’t worry about it.”

We tend to think of the poor as different, and less deserving, than ourselves. We praise ourselves for our generosity when we put some coins in a beggar’s cup or write a check to an organization that helps the homeless. We insist on thanks. (I promised myself not to get political, but… how many of us were horrified when President Zelinsky was admonished publicly for not showing the correct amount of gratitude). As I point out in my backmatter (I love backmatter!), Maimonides had a different viewpoint. Tzedakah, the Hebrew word for charity, is not viewed as a kindness, but rather as an act of justice, fairness, and righteousness all rolled into one. Maimonides insisted that it is humbling to help others with less than ourselves,  because we know that we could just as easily be in their position. And the poor person should understand that God could have just as easily given them all they need. Maimonides thought of it as a partnership between the rich and the poor. If anything, he said it is the giver who should thank the receiver for allowing them the opportunity to do a good deed. 

BB: That’s what particularly struck me about your book, yes. And any number of illustrators could have worked on this project, but you were paired with Joe Cepeda. I’m sure you were familiar with his work already. Did you know Joe prior to this book? And how do you feel about the final product and what he brought to the page?

Rich: Joe and I presented together at the Charlotte Huck Festival in 2019. That is the only time we’ve met, but I was impressed with him as a person and, of course, I loved his work. As I recall, my amazing editor (shout out to Kathy Landwehr) sent me 4 or 5 possible suggestions. Joe was my first choice. I was especially pleased when I emailed him afterward to thank him for signing on to the project, and Joe wrote back to say he had no idea I was the author. He loved the story but never looked to see who wrote it! 

Joe brought bright colors, joy, and life to my story. The spread where Moses is fist-bumping Big Jim has an Ezra Jack Keats’ neighborhood feel to me (my parents went to high school with Keats — then Jacob Katz), while being totally Cepeda, which is the highest compliment I can give. Joe also created a multicultural community. While based on teachings in the Mishnah Torah, I did not want this to be pigeonholed as a “Jewish book.”

BB: Finally, what else do you have going on these days? I know you keep your fingers in a helluva lot of pies. Tell us about ’em!

Rich: This is a crazy year for me. I have four new kids’ books out. Besides More Than Enough, there is Next Year in the White House: The Journey to Barack Obama’s First Presidential Seder illustrated by EB Lewis  (Crown and PJ Publishing), which came out in March.

What Louis Brandeis Knows–A Crusader for Social Justice Becomes a Supreme Court Justice illustrated by Stacy Innerst (Astra Calkins Creek) will publish in October, and Fanny’s Big Idea: How Jewish Book Week was Born illustrated by Alyssa Russell (Rocky Pond-Penguin Random House) will be out in November, just in time for the 100^th anniversary of the Jewish Book Council, which Fanny founded. I should point out that each of these books was sold in a different year, and they all converged on 2025. What a crazy business we are in.  I also have a music/theater piece for adults, Dear Edvard, based on the life of the artist Edvard Munch, opening with a world premiere the last week of June/ first week of July on Martha’s Vineyard. Come join us and I will save you a ticket. And at R. Michelson Galleries, https://www.rmichelson.com/illustration/ we are already working on our 36^th Annual Illustration Celebration which opens in November. You can see pictures from our 35^th Annual Celebration here:  https://www.rmichelson.com/illustration/ And make sure you scroll to the bottom of the page to see our brand new four-story Children’s Book Illustration mural.

All of which is awesome. I have been to Rich’s annual celebrations in the past and I can attest that they’re fantastic.

A big thank you to Rich for his highly entertaining and informative answers to my questions today. As I mentioned before, More Than Enough is out on bookstore and library shelves now. I highly recommend you give it a gander. It’ll give you, and the kids you serve, a heckuva lot to chew on.