A beautiful way to teach kids about Veterans Day is to use picture books and Jeff Gottesfeld has written some incredible ones with beautiful illustrations by Matt Tavares. In this interview I discuss with Jeff his inspiration for Honor Flight: Celebrating America's Veterans and Twenty-One Steps: Guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Honor Flight will become available in March 2026 and you can pre-order now. Twenty-One Steps is available now.
Find author Jeff Gottesfeld
https://www.jeffgottesfeldwriter.com/
https://www.instagram.com/jeffgottesfeldwriter/
https://www.facebook.com/jeff.gottesfeld
Honor Flight Celebrating American's Veterans by Jeff Gottesfeld illustrated by Matt Tavares https://www.amazon.com/Honor-Flight-Celebrating-Americas-Veterans/dp/1536230154/
Twenty-One Steps: Guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier by Jeff Gottesfeld and illustrated by Matt Tavares https://www.amazon.com/Twenty-One-Steps-Guarding-Tomb-Soldier/dp/1536201480/
Chapters
00:00 Meet author Jeff Gottesfeld
03:01 What is Honor Flight by Jeff Gottesfeld about?
04:47 How did Jeff get involved with an Honor Flight?
06:11 Jeff’s personal experience with being a guardian on an Honor Flight
09:19 Why is it important for kids to know about veterans?
11:22 What can parents, teachers and librarians do to help kids become more aware of veterans?
14:00 Jeff’s favorite Washington DC monument
17:48 Was 21 Steps Jeff’s first military veteran type of book?
19:25 Developing a relationship with your illustrator as a writer.
21:40 What it is like to interact with veterans.
23:48 Jeff’s journey as a writer and how he ended up doing picture books
26:51 Jeff’s book recommendation
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