For Authors

PJ Our Way, the next chapter of PJ Library, offers the gift of exceptional books with Jewish themes to kids ages 9-12 – books that they choose themselves!
 
Every month, kids can visit www.pjourway.org to pick one book from a selection of four high-quality titles. That means PJ Our Way’s Book Selection Committee chooses 48 middle-grade books every year … and you can help us achieve this goal!

Grinspoon Jewish Story Awards (previously called Author Incentive Awards) recognize the significant achievements of authors whose books are selected for the PJ Our Way line-up. All unpublished and pre-published submissions are eligible for the award, and new books chosen for the first time will receive this special recognition. (Books that are available in the trade prior to submission are not eligible for the GJSA.) These awards are truly awards – they are separate from and in addition to any monies received by the author from a publisher.

The total GJSA amount for new PJ Our Way titles (regardless of format or genre) is $5,000. Stories may be submitted by anyone, including authors, author-illustrators, agents, and publishers. Multiple stories by one author are eligible.

Authors will receive a partial award of $2,000 for any initial submission that has potential to be a PJ Our Way selection. (Initial submissions may consist of either full manuscripts or proposals including three sample chapters and an outline of the entire book.) When a partial award is given, the chair of the book selection committee will be in touch with the author to discuss the direction of the work. Once the published book is slated for distribution in the program, the author will be awarded the remaining $3,000.

These awards reflect PJ Our Way’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 Our Way please contact submissions@pjourway.org.

PJ Our Way reserves 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.

PJ Our Way is always on the lookout for great titles appropriate for readers ages 9-12. If you are interested in submitting a manuscript to the PJ Our Way Book Selection Committee for consideration, please review our website to get an idea of the type of books we offer, and read the PJ Our Way Content Framework to understand our guidelines.

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, which means no alcohol or drugs, no bad language, and any romance needs to be very innocent.

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).

After careful consideration and research, we updated our Holocaust content policy in 2025. In line with mainstream education experts and specialist Holocaust educators, PJ Our Way now offers a range of books about the Holocaust.  These include resistance stories as well as those with more challenging scenes in ghettos and concentration camps and storylines in which characters die. Mature material will always be highlighted in our web content about the book.   

In accordance with our mission and framework, any potential PJ Our Way books with Holocaust content should include narratives about Jewish representation, Jewish narratives, and/or Jewish Values and Lifecycle, and should depict events accurately and authentically. 

Our policy of offering positive Jewish content remains at the heart of PJ Our Way’s mission, and books containing Holocaust content will continue to be in the minority in our line-up. We know that some parents feel that the Holocaust is not suitable subject matter for their middle-grade readers. For these families, there will always be alternative options to choose from that month. 

PJ Our Way accept submissions via Submittable only. Due to the high volume of submissions, we can provide feedback only to those authors whose work will be discussed further. Expected responses may take up to six months. 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.