After The War
Carol Matas
 **Please note that this novel contains both graphic descriptions of the atrocities of the Shoah and of the virulent antisemitism in Europe even after the war and intensely emotional passages.**
In the aftermath of World War II, 15-year-old Ruth joins the underground organization Brichah, aiding its members in their quest to bring Jewish immigrants from Europe to Palestine. She helps lead a group of children on this dangerous journey, exhibiting courage, passion and the rebirth of hope. |
Alan and Naomi
Myron Levoy
 The novel features Alan, a fourteen year old boy growing up in New York during the second World War. When Naomi Kirshenbaum, a refugee from France, moves into his apartment building, his parents encourage him to befriend her. Alan is initially reluctant; Naomi is deeply scarred by her war experiences and the neighborhood kids think she is “crazy.” However, Alan visits her regularly and succeeds, almost single-handedly, in stabilizing her. She begins to talk again, ventures outside, and ultimately joins Alan in school. Alan is forever changed and matured by his experience. Naomi’s precarious hold on sanity is broken at the end of this novel. **This may be disturbing to younger readers. |
Blood Secret
Kathryn Lasky
 **Please note that this novel contains graphic descriptions of the atrocities of the Spanish Inquisition; therefore, this novel is best suited for mature readers.**
Jerry hasn't spoken a word in the six years since her mother disappeared. Sometimes she wants to talk, but she just . . . can't. Sent to live with her great-great-aunt, Constanza, Jerry discovers an ancient trunk in the basement that holds the key to the mysteries of her family. Why does Constanza light candles every Friday night? Where did her strange superstitions come from? The answers lead Jerry on a bloodstained path into the shadows of stories -- stories about the Spanish Inquisition nearly five hundred years ago and stories of secrets locked deep in the bloodlines of Jerry's ancestors. |
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The Cross by Day, the Mezuzzah by Night
Deborah Spector Siegel
 Seville, 1492: 13-year-old Isabel Caruso de Carvallo has just discovered she is a Marrano, a secret Jew, and therefore must leave Spain by royal edict. This thrilling story captures the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition and the determination of one young girl to preserve her family and culture at any cost. |
The Cure
Sonia Levitin
 Gemm 16884 is considered a deviant and a threat to the utopian society of the year 2407 because he persists in the forbidden making of music. Given a choice between being “recycled” or undergoing a mysterious “cure,” he chooses the latter. He then finds himself living the life of Johannes, a young Jewish musician at the time of the Black Death. Surrounded by hatred and fear, he struggles to hold onto his family and faith, and wonders whether he can ever return to the future. To view the study guide for hithadshut (renewal) click here. To view the study guide for the theme k'vod habriyot (human dignity) click here. This book is currently out of print. |
Dave at Night
Gail Carson Levine
 In 1926, Dave’s father dies and his stepmother doesn’t want him. Only the cold and strict Hebrew Home for Boys will take him in. Outside the gates of the orphanage, the nighttime streets of Harlem buzz with music and nightlife. Inside, another world unfolds, thick with rare friendships and bitter enemies. Perhaps between the two, Dave can find a place that feels like home. |
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Dear Emma
Johanna Hurwitz
 In this sequel to Faraway Summer, Dossi Rabinowitz corresponds with Emma and her family during the school year following her summer visit. Dossi’s life in New York City is changing rapidly, and in her letters she shares her frustrations, fears, and dreams for the future. |
Dreams in the Golden Country
Kathryn Lasky
 New dreams and old traditions both clash and complement each other when a Jewish girl and her family emigrate from Russia to America. Twelve-year-old Zipporah uses her diary to chronicle her family’s adjustment to life on New York City’s Lower East Side, as well as her own hopes and dreams. |
Duel
David Grossman
 The letter on the table said: 'You are a miserable old thief! Unless you return her mouth to me by seven o'clock this evening, I will take it away from you by force'. So begins a story in which a young boy must solve the mystery of the stolen mouth and save two men from a duel to the death. This is a tale of friendship between a beguiling boy and an old man with a past — a history that shapes the plot of the book and unfurls in the way real stories do between friends. David and Mr Rosenthal are generations apart in age but equally brave and each as unique for their years as the other. |
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Haym Salomon: Liberty’s Son
Shirley Milgrim
 Here is the little-known story of the selfless and patriotic Jewish merchant who raised money to finance the American Revolution and the new nation. Salomon's patriotism and his exploits with the Sons of Liberty were a natural outgrowth of his Jewish heritage. |
Holes
Louis Sachar
 “If you take a bad boy and make him dig a hole every day in the hot sun, it will turn him into a good boy” is the motto of Camp Green Lake, a juvenile detention center. Sent there as punishment for a crime he didn’t commit, Stanley Yelnats is determined to survive. In this story of crime, punishment, and friendship, Stanley realizes that fate has big things in store for him. |
Jason's Miracle
Beryl Leiff Benderly
 Jason doesn't understand why his dad makes such a big deal about Hanukkah and the miracle of the oil. Then a strange boy appears in the middle of the night with an urgent message from Judah Maccabee, and Jason learns firsthand about fighting for a cause and about miracles. |
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The King of Mulberry Street
Donna Jo Napoli
 This novel shares the story of Beniamino, a nine-year-old Jewish boy from Napoli, Italy, whose mother smuggles him aboard a cargo ship heading to America in 1892. Shortly after his departure, Beniamino learns that his mother did not join him onboard. Upon reaching America, he vows to return to Napoli as soon as possible, but a series of events complicates his plans. He assumes the name Dom and finds himself on the Lower East Side of New York City. Over the course of his experiences, Dom accepts New York as his new home and realizes that he was sent there for hopes of a better life. |
Letters from Rifka
Karen Hesse
 Rifka and her family have fled Russia's brutal treatment of the Jews for a new life in America. But the doctors refuse to let her board the ship because she has a contagious disease – so her family must leave without her. In letters to her cousin, she describes her family's flight and her own experiences while she waits in Belgium until she can join them. |
Love from Your Friend, Hannah
Mindy Warshaw Skolsky
 Hannah's best friend, Aggie, moves away and doesn't answer a single one of her letters. Determined to find a new pen pal, Hannah picks an address from a box on her teacher's desk. It's a boy, but his first letter is so dopey, Hannah isn't even going to answer it. Instead, she writes to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Before long, Hannah has a whole lot of pen pals – and finally discovers the perfect friend in a most unlikely place. |
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Mitzvah Magic
Danny Siegel
 Just like the kids in our “Kid Power” articles, you too can take on projects to help change the world. This inspiring book includes stories of people who have found large and small ways to make a difference. Each story concludes with ideas that all of us can use to begin to do mitzvahs. |
My Guardian Angel
Sylvie Weil
 **This book is can not be obtained from our book-selling partners, please check you local bookstore for availability.** Elvina is the granddaughter of Rashi, and she knows how to read and write. She draws strength from this, as well as from her Guardian Angel. She has only a moment to make a difficult choice. Can her Guardian Angel guide her and keep her safe? |
Next Year in Jerusalem
Howard Schwartz
 Jerusalem is a city that captures the imagination. This beautifully illustrated collection of eleven timeless stories, folktales and legends celebrates the unique spirit of the city in which everything is holy, even the dust under one's feet. |
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Of Heroes, Hooks, and Heirlooms
Faye Silton
 As part of her class’s Heritage Project, Mia is asked to bring in old family photos. But she only has one photo, which is shrouded in mystery. She's afraid to ask her parents about it because of the pain her questions might cause. Perhaps the photo itself contains clues that can reveal the answers to Mia’s questions about her family’s history. |
Out of Many Waters
Jacqueline Dembar Greene
 Kidnapped from their parents during the Portuguese Inquisition, Maria and Isobel Ben Lazar were shipped across the ocean and forced to work as slaves at a monastery in Brazil. This novel tells the story of their escape from the monastery, then follows Isobel as she stows away aboard a Dutch ship bound for Amsterdam. |
Plots and Players
Pamela Melnikoff
 **Please note that This novel contains descriptions of the atrocities of the Inquistion and of the virulent anti-Semitism in Europe at the time.**
It is 1594 and young William Shakespeare is working on a new play. When a Portuguese Jew, who has served as Queen Elizabeth's physician for years, is accused of plotting to poison her, the three Fernandez children attempt to convince the Queen to spare the doctor's life. Can the children save him? And will Shakespeare begin to see the prejudice around him? |
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The Pushcart War
Jean Merrill
 The pushcarts have declared war! New York City's streets are clogged with huge, rude trucks, and the pushcart peddlers are determined to get rid of them. But the trucks are just as determined to get rid of the pushcarts, and chaos results. The pushcarts then come up with a brilliant strategy that will surely let the hot air out of their enemies. The secret weapon: a peashooter armed with a pin; the target: the vulnerable truck tires. Once the source of the flat tires is discovered, the children of the city happily join in with their own pin peashooters. The pushcarts have won the battle, but can they win the war? |
The Return
Sonia Levitin
 **Please note that due to some of this book’s content, it would be best studied with more mature readers. **
Desta is a fifteen-year-old orphan girl from Beta Yisrael, the Jews of Ethiopia who endured centuries-long persecution at the hands of their Ethiopian neighbors. She embarks on a perilous trip to Sudan, where she hopes to find the rescuers who are taking Beta Yisrael to safety in Israel. Desta and her sister use their wits and determination to find others from their village in Ethiopia and to fulfill their dream of living in Eretz Yisrael. |
Rivka's Way
Teri Kanefield
 **This book cannot be obtained from our book-selling partners, please check you local bookstore for availability.** Rivka’s Way is set in Prague in 1778, when Jews were forced to live behind ghetto walls. Rivka ventures outside the ghetto walls to help a new friend, a Christian boy, but she fears the consequences if anyone were to discover her secret. What she discovers outside the walls dramatically changes the way she views her neighbors, her family, herself, and her future. |
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Secret Letters from 0 to 10
Susie Morgenstern
 Ernest lives a quiet, orderly life with his grandmother and their elderly housekeeper in France. But everything changes when Ernest meets Victoria de Montardent. Victoria (along with her 13 lively brothers!) turns his world topsy-turvy, and along the way, Ernest learns how friendship can enrich his life in ways he never thought possible. |
Speed of Light
Sybil Rosen
 It’s 1956. Eleven-year-old Audrey Ina has lived in the town of Blue Gap, Virginia all her life, and thinks she knows everyone in it and has nothing to fear. Then one day, someone throws a rock through the window of her father's factory. Is it because he supports a black man who wants to join the police force? Or is it because their family is Jewish? Either way, this small-town Southern girl knows she must do her best to stand up to hatred, fear, and injustice. |
The Storyteller’s Beads
Jane Kurtz
 All that Rahel has left of her family in Ethiopia is a string of beads her grandmother gave her and the stories she told. As Rahel, blind and alone, travels to freedom in Israel she meets up with Sahay, a Christian who is also escaping their war-torn country. Along their journey the two girls manage to overcome the generations of prejudice that separate them. Rahel comforts herself and Sahay with stories from the Bible and Ethiopian tradition that help them believe they will survive their ordeal. |
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Strange Relations
Sonia Levitin
 **Please note that due to some of this book’s content, it would be best studied with more mature readers. **
Marne asks her parents permission to spend the summer in Hawaii with Aunt Carole and her family. But Marne quickly realizes her visit isn't going to be just about learning to surf and morning runs along the beach. For one thing, Aunt Carole isn't even Aunt Carole anymore, she's Aunt Chaya, married to a Chasidic rabbi and deeply rooted in her religious community. Nothing could be more foreign to Marne, but as she settles into her newfound family's daily routine, she begins to think about spirituality, identity, and finding a place in the world in a way she never has before.
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Tell Me a Mitzvah
Danny Siegel
 **This book is can not be obtained from our book-selling partners, please check you local bookstore for availability.** Tell Me a Mitzvah is a series of profiles of modern-day mitzvah heroes. Danny Siegel relates the stories of “mitzvah people” who, everyday, engage in acts of tikun olam (repairing the world). Each profile ends with suggestions and examples of ways that all readers— regardless of age— can maximize their performance of mitzvot. |
Thank You, Jackie Robinson
Barbara Cohen
 Sam and Davy come from different races, religions, and generations, but they have one thing very much in common – they both love the Brooklyn Dodgers and baseball. When Davy has a heart attack, Sam is determined to show Davy how much their friendship means to him by getting Davy a baseball signed by their mutual hero, Jackie Robinson. |
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A Time of Angels
Karen Hesse
 Hannah Gold, 14, and her two younger sisters live with their Tanta Rose in Boston while their parents are trapped in Russia. When the deadly influenza epidemic of 1918 ravishes the city, Hannah's world is turned upside down. After her aunt’s death, Hannah too comes down with the flu and is sent to a Vermont farm. There, she is nursed back to health, and is determined to reunite her family. |
The Treasure in the Tiny Blue Tin
Dede Fox Ducharme
 Twelve-year-old Max Miller immigrated to America through the port of Galveston, Texas. When his papa does not return from a trip in time for Passover, Max decides to go find him and bring him home. His search involves a new bicycle, an unlikely friendship, and surviving the perils of the Texas wilderness. |
The View from Saturday
E.L. Konigsburg
 In this brilliant and heartwarming novel, four diverse sixth-graders are chosen by their teacher, Mrs. Olinski, to be the class representatives for the Academic Bowl team. When the team goes on to win the state championship, people keep asking Mrs. Olinski how she chose the participants. The story, told from different perspectives, lets readers in on the secret of how this surprising group came together. |
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The War with Grandpa
Robert Kimmel Smith
 Peter is thrilled that Grandpa is coming to live with his family. That is, until Grandpa moves into Peter's room, forcing him upstairs. Since no one is listening to Peter’s feelings, he declares war on Grandpa, devising outrageous plans to make Grandpa surrender the room. But Grandpa is tougher than he looks. Has Peter gone too far in his quest to get his room back? |
The War Within
Carol Matas
 Holly Springs, Mississippi, 1862: Hannah Green can't believe what is happening to her family since the war broke out. First, her sister Joanna has fallen in love with a Union soldier – an enemy. The soldier then tells Hannah and her family about the order requiring all Jews to evacuate the territory. The Greens escape just before their home is destroyed. They lose everything – even their slaves, whom Lincoln has freed. Now, because she is Jewish, Hannah cannot go home to Mississippi, and confusion sets in. Who is on her side, and whose side does she want to be on? |
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