If “Gender-flipped Jewish Cinderella story set in London in 1832” doesn’t grab you, well… Okay.
How about the fact that it contains fascinating political machinations within the Jewish community and mostly gentile power structure, a very savvy heroine navigating incredibly difficult business and family circumstances, and a hero who is so kind and loveable that you just want to give him the world’s biggest hug?
All wrapped up in Felicia Grossman’s gorgeous prose.
London, 1832: Isabelle Lira may be in distress, but she's no damsel. Since her father's death, his former partners have sought to oust her from their joint equity business. Her only choice is to marry-and fast-to a powerful ally outside the respected Berab family's sphere of influence. Only finding the right spouse will require casting a wide net. So she'll host a series of festivals, to which every eligible Jewish man is invited.
Once, Aaron Ellenberg longed to have a family of his own. But as the synagogue custodian, he is too poor for wishes and not foolish enough for…
I took my bicycle to ride across northern Spain last summer and brought along some Spanish-oriented novels.
Noah Gordon’s book follows the path of a young man whose father and brother are murdered when Queen Isabella decides that all the Jews must be expelled from the country. Fifteen-year-old, Yonah Toledano, sets off on a journey through various parts of Spain, trying to keep one step ahead of the priestly authorities, who, if they catch him, will burn him at the stake.
It's an adventure story. But I also learned a great deal about the operations and cruel applications of the Inquisition. At the Prado Museum in Madrid, I viewed Francisco Goya’s paintings depicting various Inquisition scenes, which drove the novel’s points home even harder.
In the year 1492, the Inquisition has all of Spain in its grip. After centuries of pogrom-like riots encouraged by the Church, the Jews - who have been an important part of Spanish life since the days of the Romans - are expelled from the country by royal edict. Many who wish to remain are intimidated by Church and Crown and become Catholics, but several hundred thousand choose to retain their religion and depart; given little time to flee, some perish even before they can escape from Spain.
Yonah Toledano, the 15-year-old son of a celebrated Spanish silversmith, has seen…
My life has been blessed by having British grandparents who lived very long lives. Grandad was in the RAF and Nanny sewed for the War Effort during WWII. They rarely spoke of their experiences until they reached their early 90s. Their memories, other family members, and friends inspired me to research the children who persevered through Operation Pied Piper. I also visited related locations in England gathering more information. The Greatest Generation had a huge impact on who I am as a person and how I treat others. My recommendation list is a sampling of some of my favorite books about perseverance.
After reading Susan Lynn Meyer’s book I sought her out. I didn’t expect a response, I needed to tell her how much I appreciated her book and how I adored the bond she had with her characters. It felt like she was sharing a family story. She validated my theory. Her book is based on her family’s history. Gustave is a French Jewish boy living in Paris at the beginning of the book. He watches and documents the Nazi party taking over Europe. She shares precise small details…you feel connected to what’s going on in Gustave’s life. You understand his fears as they move to a “safer” part of France.
Sydney Taylor Honor Award Winner Black Radishes is a suspenseful WWII/Holocaust story, in which one boy learns what it means to be Jewish and French at a time when everything is changing.
Gustave doesn't want to move from the exciting city to the boring countryside, far from his cousin Jean-Paul and his best friend, the mischievous Marcel. But he has no choice. It is March of 1940, and Paris is not a safe place for Jews. When Paris is captured by the Nazis, Gustave knows that Marcel, Jean-Paul, and their families must make it out of the occupied zone. And…
As a Jew that is both Ashkenazi and Persian that lives in Hong Kong where I’m raising my Jewish Chinese children, I see Judaism for its rich diversity. I’m passionate about changing people’s perceptions about what Jews look like and where we hail from. We are not a single story. To further that goal, in 2009, I founded Asian Jewish Life - a journal of spirit, society, and culture, have penned book chapters and articles on Jewish Asia, have written children’s books about communities that are Jewish&, and have lectured internationally on related topics. These books are about Jewish communities, but they’re really about family and tradition. Read diverse books!
Osnat and her Dove is so much more than a book that reflects Iraqi Jewish culture.
It is a book that will inspire girls to see the limitless possibilities that they have to choose their own paths. It’s a window into a community and history that readers likely know little about. The layered gouache illustrations create the illusion of texture and make the book even more magical.
Osnat was born five hundred years ago - at a time when almost everyone
believed in miracles. But very few believed that girls should learn to
read.
Yet Osnat's father was a great scholar whose house was
filled with books. And she convinced him to teach her. Then she in turn
grew up to teach others, becoming a wise scholar in her own right, the
world's first female rabbi!
Some say Osnat performed miracles - like healing a dove who had been shot by a hunter! Or saving a congregation from fire!
I am a rabbi, educator and author. I have had the privilege of writing many books over the course of my rabbinate. Over the past five years, I have turned the attention of my writing to children’s books. And I am especially attuned to those books that take complicated Jewish ideas and tell them in words and pictures that young children can understand. I try to do this in my own writing, as well.
Yom Kippur is a difficult holiday for adults. It is even more difficult and exceptionally abstract for kids.
Words like atonement and forgiveness are particularly hard to grasp. This book focuses on one idea: saying I’m sorry. As a result, it takes an idea that is taught by parents, educators, and caregivers and places it in a Jewish holiday story context that is both playful and profound. I like this book, because it takes a complicated idea and distills it in a very manageable way.
Loosely based on the Hasidic legend "The Tear of Repentance", The Hardest Word is a story about forgiveness.
The Ziz, a wonderful bird who lived long ago, is so big and clumsy that he can't keep from bumping into things. When a tree he knocks over destroys the children's garden, he seeks God's help to fix things. "Bring me the hardest word," God instructs him, and the Ziz flies off to search. He brings back words like rhinocerous, rock, and Rumplestiltskin, but none is acceptable, until he makes an important discovery.
I have always straddled between the worlds of fiction and poetry. I received my MFA in poetry in 2016, but during my time in the program, I was often told my poems were too narrative. Sometimes in my fiction workshops in undergrad, I was told my stories were too poetic. So when I finally jumped into the world of verse, I really fell in love with the intersection of poetry and story. Finally, there was a medium that felt “just right!” There are so many fantastic novels in verse out there—with so many more to come—but I hope you’ll enjoy these five favorites of mine!
The book uses verse to create a modern-day fairy tale, mixing magic with contemporary Prague. This makes magic feel so close and tangible for us as readers.
Because of this, we believe our protagonist Ilana and sympathise with her as she makes friends with the ghost of a Jewish boy from decades ago, and fights the hold of the strange and charismatic Wasserman, who has the ability to make the memory of children disappear.
Despite its magical appearance, this story still tackles compelling real-world issues of racism, war, and diaspora in a compelling way.
A brilliantly original tale for fans of The Bear and the Nightingale and The Hazel Wood about embracing your power, facing your monsters, and loving deeply enough to transcend a century.
Inspired by the author's experiences restoring Jewish cemeteries in Eastern Europe.
"A must-read for lost souls everywhere." —Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review
Magic will burn you up.
Sent to stay with her aunt in Prague and witness the humble life of an artist, Ilana Lopez—a biracial Jewish girl—finds herself torn between her dream of becoming a violinist and her immigrant parents’ desire for her to pursue a more stable career.…
When I was six years old, my Dutch relatives visited. Stories swirled about their bravery in getting secrets from the Germans and sharing the intel with the Allies, about their privation during the hunger winter, and their work hiding their Jewish countrymen. I studied abroad in 1977-1978 and took the opportunity to visit my Dutch relatives. They told me more stories of their resistance work, their escapades, and, most importantly, their “why” during my time with them. Such stories don’t leave you–ever. They percolated in my head for years until a voice came to me, Rika’s voice, and I began to write. Sixty Blades of Grass is the result.
This is the Dutch Underground at its finest. The “why” people would risk their lives and resist the German persecution of the Jews came through loud and clear here.
Based on a true story, Corrie Ten Boom ran an underground cell out of her home in Harlem with the support of her family. Her religion sustained her through tremendous losses and suffering but enabled her to find peace for herself and others post-war.
It's World War II. Darkness has fallen over Europe as the Nazis spread hatred, fear and war across the globe. But on a quiet city corner in the Netherlands, one woman fights against the darkness.
In her quiet watchmaking shop, she and her family risk their lives to hide Jews, and others hunted by the Nazis, in a secret room, a "hiding place" that they built in the old building.
One day, however, Corrie and her family are betrayed. They're captured and sent to the notorious Nazi concentration camps to die. Yet even…
I believe that good Jewish stories are important tools in building Jewish identity. But when I first taught preschoolers, the books were either too didactic or written for older children. One day, when the children in my class were enthusiastically discussing the Christmas display at the mall, the idea came to me that maybe an eight-legged Spider celebrating the eight days of Hanukkah could compete with Frosty the Snowman. When Sammy Spider asks to spin a dreidel, he is told, “Spider’s don’t spin dreidels. Spiders spin webs.” The response became a favorite with Jewish children and a form of the phrase is part of all the Sammy Spider holiday and values books.
The Shabbat Box is by Lesley Simpson. Ira’s preschool uses a box to store all the Shabbat objects and when school ends on Shabbat, one of the students gets to take the box home. But when it’s Ira’s turn to take it home, he loses it in the snow. Upset, he decides to make a new Shabbat Box for his class. On Monday, at sharing time, his friends are all surprised and pleased by Ira’s new Shabbat Box. And, then to the children’s delight, the teacher tells them she found the missing Shabbat Box, and now they have two! The story is a favorite of preschoolers.
I love how The Shabbat Box transfers the Shabbat classroom experience into an experience at home. For many of the children, Shabbat occurs only in the classroom and this story helps both the child and the family see how they can celebrate Shabbat at…
It's finally Ira's turn to take home the Shabbat Box from school. But a bad storm blows open his book bag and the box is lost. What will Ira do? A warm introduction to Shabbat for preschoolers.
I teach Jewish studies to Jewish teens and have devoted my life to helping young people find meaningful the legacy that’s been given to us—and building bridges to the future; this is in the classroom as well as on the page. My book is a distillation of everything I love about being Jewish—wrapped in a story that many readers find deeply familiar. At the same time, I believe in planting the universal in the specific—and any reader ready to go on a journey can find themselves in Will Levine’s shoes.
I loved this book, which made me both cry and laugh. It is a touching exploration of grief, friendship, and coming-of-age. The story follows Noah and his best friend, Dash, two b’nai mitzvah boys obsessed with comedy, especially the classic Three Stooges.
When Dash’s father dies by suicide—presented sensitively and honestly—their friendship faces strain as Dash withdraws and Noah struggles to understand his friend’s pain. Perl’s writing captures the desperate need for friendship characteristic of adolescence.
The book thoughtfully addresses mental illness and death—but also loyalty and friendship, making it relatable to adult and middle-grade readers. Humor becomes both a way of pushing away and engaging, highlighting the essential role of laughter in growth and healing.
SYDNEY TAYLOR BOOK AWARD HONOREE FOR OLDER READERS! WINNER OF THE NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD FOR CHILDREN'S LITERATURE!
An unforgettable coming-of-age story about comedy, loss, and friendship for fans of Jennifer L. Holm and Gary D. Schmidt.
Spoiler alert: This book is not about the Three Stooges. It's about Noah and Dash, two seventh graders who are best friends and comedy junkies. That is, they were best friends, until Dash's father died suddenly and Dash shut Noah out. Which Noah deserved, according to Noa, the girl who, annoyingly, shares both his name and his bar mitzvah day.
In 1968, my white Jewish American mother married my Indian American Hindu father. I grew up in Connecticut and often felt othered in my mostly white Christian community. I also felt different than many of my extended family members, feeling not quite Jewish or Indian “enough.” These issues and questions I had and still have about my identity have fueled my writing ever since. I write about characters navigating multiple identities asking questions about racism, prejudice, and xenophobia often for the first time. The books on this list are books I wished I could have had around to keep me company during my youth.
Just the title alone makes me excited because if I had a Bat Mitzvah (I didn’t), this is what I might have wanted to call it! It’s a heartfelt and funny middle-grade novel about a girl named Tara Feinstein with a white Jewish father and an Indian American mother who is preparing for her upcoming Bat Mitzvah. I like the way the themes of intersectionality are layered with classic middle-school concerns--friends, crushes, parental pressure, and how she figures out who she is in the midst of so many things changing all at once. The questions Tara is asking, how to be part of both sides of her family and still stay true to who she is, deeply resonated with me, but I think many middle-schoolers regardless of their background would connect in different ways. Part of the value of the book is that it is so widely relatable and yet…
During the fall leading up to her bat mitzvah, Tara (Hindi for "star") Feinstein has a lot more than her Torah portion on her mind. Between Hebrew school and study sessions with the rabbi, there doesn't seem to be enough time to hang out with her best friend Ben-o-who might also be her boyfriend-and her other best friend, Rebecca, who's getting a little too cozy with the snotty Sheila Rosenberg. Not to mention working on her robotics project with the class clown, Ryan Berger, or figuring out what to do with a priceless heirloom sari that she accidentally ruined. Amid…
