Hidden Hope: How a Toy and a Hero Saved Lives During the Holocaust by Elisa Boxer; illus. by Amy June BatesPrimary, Intermediate Abrams 48 pp.3/23 9781419750007 $19.99e-book ed. 9781647000899 $15.54This slowly unfolding picture-book biography begins by setting the scene: the environment of hate during the Holocaust and why it was...
Imogen, Obviously by Becky AlbertalliHigh School Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins 432 pp.5/23 9780063045873 $19.99e-book ed. 9780063045897 $12.99High school senior Imogen has always thought of herself as a straight ally to the queer people close to her. But a visit to her best friend, first-year college student Lili, complicates matters. For one...
Second Chance Summer by Sarah KapitIntermediate, Middle School Holt 240 pp.5/23 9781250860903 $17.99e-book ed. 9781250860897 $10.99Classmates Chloe and Maddie, both twelve, used to be best friends. Now they decidedly aren’t, and they’re dismayed to find themselves in the same bunk at a drama camp. Scenes of the summer (and a...
Whatever your JAHM, er, your jam — or your age or genre preferences — here are some recent recommended books (a non-exhaustive list!) about varied Jewish experiences, in the U.S. and beyond. There’s fiction and nonfiction; there’s humor and fantasy. In some of these books, Judaism and Jewish identity are...
The Tower of Life: How Yaffa Eliach Rebuilt Her Town in Stories and Photographs by Chana Stiefel; illus. by Susan GalPrimary Scholastic 40 pp.10/22 9781338225891 $18.99This picture-book biography of Holocaust historian Yaffa Eliach (1935–2016) begins with her happy childhood in the shtetl of Eishyshok in what is now Lithuania, emphasizing...
Afikomen by Tziporah Cohen; illus. by Yaara EshetPreschool, Primary Groundwood 32 pp.3/23 9781773066066 $19.99e-book ed. 9781773066073 $16.99Cohen’s inventive picture book uses graphic-novel conventions and is wordless but for the front and back matter and Hebrew and Aramaic text incorporated into the illustrations. It opens with a definition: the afikomen is...
Stars of the Night: The Courageous Children of the Czech Kindertransport by Caren Stelson; illus. by Selina Alko Primary, Intermediate Carolrhoda 40 pp. 2/23 9781541598683 $19.99 In this quiet but immediate nonfiction picture book, Stelson (A Bowl Full of Peace, rev. 7/20) tells the story of the 669 children evacuated...
Honey and Me by Meira DrazinIntermediate, Middle School Scholastic 304 pp.10/22 9781338155433 $17.99Milla and Honey are best friends who spend time together at synagogue but have always attended different Orthodox schools. When Honey and her siblings transfer to narrator Milla’s school at the beginning of sixth grade, the colliding worlds...
When the Angels Left the Old Country by Sacha Lamb High School Levine Querido 408 pp. 10/22 9781646141760 $19.99 In this expansive queer tale that marries historical fiction with inventive world-building based on Jewish folklore, a demon called Little Ash (short for Ashmedai) and an angel who takes on different...