Sydney Taylor Book Award Honor

From Sydney Taylor Award winner and National Jewish Book Award honoree Laurel Snyder comes a warm, reverential, surprising, and fresh story of one very special Hanukkah.

When a fire breaks out at the Jewish Theological Seminary library, helping hands from across the community rally together to save the books and preserve the stories within the pages. Includes factual backmatter on the Jewish Theological Seminary fire of 1966.

Told against the background of the Jewish holidays, My Body Can is a positive affirmation that bodies of all shapes, sizes, and abilities are beautiful

In a Beinoni time there should be no war, no terrible illness, no crime. Even if that also means there won't be any great discoveries, any cures, anything extraordinary. Ezra believes that's worth fighting for. In fact, he's been training most of his life to fight a battle to determine whether Beinoni time continues, or gives way to a more violent, less certain future. He is the Nivchar, the chosen one, with the sign of the scales on his skin. When he comes of age at his bar mitzvah, so too will the gurya, a fiery beast of uncertain form, emerging from a cave to conquer, destroy, and herald a time of conflict. But Ezra begins to sense that something is very wrong. His friends, his neighbors, the whole world is losing the careful, even balance he's come to expect in a Beinoni time. It was always uncertain whether he'd be able to best his terrifying, magical foe. But now, is it even possible?

Shai, a thirteen-year-old nonbinary homeschooler, attempts to find a "new normal" post-pandemic as they start public school, meet new friends, and learn about their Jewish identity.

What a happy day! Zachary's baby sister will have her naming ceremony. In the temple! With his moms, the congregation, and all their friends! He's so excited he can barely contain it. On the walk from their home, they meet neighbor after neighbor who want to know the baby's name. But - not yet! - his mothers tell him. The tradition is to have a great reveal at the ceremony. So they invite each neighbor to come along. A colorful, diverse parade blooms along the route, until...At last it's time, and Zachary gets to reveal his sister's name...What is it? A truly joyful moment for everyone.

A child and a mother measure, mix, knead, shape, and tuck their dough under a towel like a sleeping baby. Then, as they do every week, they wait while their dough rises, soon to be baked and gratefully shared at a Shabbat gathering with loved ones. Author Sidura Ludwig's poetic narration captures the experience of a Jewish family as they make challah--a lesson in patience, slowing down, faith, and family.

During World War Two, in the concentration camp Terezin, a group of Jewish children and their devoted teacher planted and nurtured a smuggled-in sapling. Over time fewer and fewer children were left to care for the little tree, but those who remained kept lovingly sharing their water with it. When the war finally ended and the prisoners were freed, the sapling had grown into a strong five-foot-tall maple. Nearly eighty years later the tree's 600 descendants around the world are thriving, including one that was planted at New York City's Museum of Jewish Heritage in 2021. Students will continue to care for it for generations to come, and the world will remember the brave teacher and children who never gave up nurturing a brighter future.

Finn and Ezra's bar mitzvah weekend takes on a Groundhog Day twist in this hilarious and magical middle grade novel from Joshua S.  Levy.  Finn and Ezra don't have a lot in common--except, of course, that they're trapped in a bar mitzvah time loop, reliving their celebrations in the same New Jersey hotel over and over and over again. Not ideal, particularly when both kids were ready for their bar mitzvahs to end the moment they began. Ezra comes from a big family--four siblings, all seeming to get more attention than him, even on his bar mitzvah weekend.  Finn is an only child who's tired of his parents' constant focus, even worse on his bar mitzvah weekend. They just want to get past it, just want to grow up. And now they're both stuck. Friday. Saturday.  Sunday.  No way out. Until Finn and Ezra meet and realize they're not alone

Spanning over five hundred years, a novel telling the stories of four girls from different generations of a Jewish family, many of them forced to leave their country and start a new life.

A tribute to Abraham Cahan, founder of a prominent Yiddish language newspaper whose discussion of everything from voting rights to baseball offered crucial guidance to Jewish immigrants.  

In this wordless time-travel adventure, three children at a Passover seder visit ancient Egypt to help baby Moses find his way safely to Pharaoh's daughter. When a family settles at the table for Passover, their dog nabs the afikomen bag (containing matzah used for the seder) and dives under the tablecloth. The children follow him and find themselves transported to ancient Egypt. There, they see baby Moses' mother and sister Miriam placing him in a reed basket. The baby's journey down the Nile is hazardous -- he encounters several obstacles along the way, including a wily crocodile. Thanks to the three children, he reaches his destination unharmed, with a piece of afikomen tucked into his basket. The children return to the seder table and, exhausted, fall asleep. But what are their parents to make of the grains of sand in the afikomen bag? Includes an author's note about the meaning of the Passover holiday and about different afikomen traditions. 

A pair of tween vampires hide their true nature from the humans in their town.

From their homes in New York and New Zealand, cousins Noah and Nora have a competition to decide who can have the world's best Hanukkah, winter or summer, but as the eight nights of Hanukkah go on, they realize they have more in common than they thought.

During World War II, families all across Europe huddled together in basements, attics, and closets as Nazi soldiers rounded up anyone Jewish. The Star of David, a symbol of faith and pride, became a tool of hate when the Nazis forced Jewish people to carry papers stamped with that star, so that it was clear who to capture. But many brave souls dared to help them. Jewish teenager Jacqueline Gauthier, a member of the French Resistance who had to conceal her identity, was one who risked her life in secret workshops, forging papers with new names and without stars in order to help others escape. But how to get these life-saving papers to families in hiding? An ordinary wooden toy duck held the answer, a hidden compartment: hope in a hollow. Written by award-winning journalist Elisa Boxer and movingly illustrated by the acclaimed Amy June Bates, Hope in a Hollow celebrates the triumph of freedom and the human spirit, a story of everyday heroism, resilience, and finding hope in unexpected places.

A Jewish seventh grade boy is caught between the worlds of his divorced parents--with an orthodox mother and secular father, Jake must concoct a web of lies to go to a summer camp.

Twelve-year-old Shai hates having to move to America and is determined to find a way get back home to Israel--until she starts openning up to new experiences and friendships.

In 1905 North Dakota, eleven-year-old Russian immigrant Shoshana is bullied for being Jewish, but after listening to the music of her homeland, she is reminded of the resilience and traditions her people have brought all the way to the prairie.

When the opportunity arises, Shirley, the daughter of immigrants who live above their corner grocery store, turns some overlooked gefilte fish into a marketing strategy that changes the flavor of the neighborhood.

Pesah has lived with leprosy for years, and the twins have spent most of that time working on a cure. Then Pesah has a vision: The Angel of Death will come for him on Rosh Hashanah, just one month away. So Ziva takes her brother and runs away to find doctors who can cure him. But when they meet and accidentally free a half-demon boy, he suggests paying his debt by leading them to the fabled city of Luz, where no one ever dies--the one place Pesah will be safe.

Ellen, an autistic thirteen-year-old, navigates a new city, shifting friendships, a growing crush, and her queer and Jewish identities while on a class trip to Barcelona, Spain.

Milla and Honey have been best friends since forever. In their close-knit Jewish community, the two girls do everything together. So when Honey joins Milla's school for sixth grade, why is it not as great as Milla expected? Can their friendship survive all the ups and downs the year has in store for them? 

Sukkot is Shoshi's favorite Jewish holiday. She and her brothers love to decorate their sukkah, the hut where her family will celebrate. But who will win the Ugandan Abayudaya community's annual sukkah contest? While only one sukkah can be the best, everybody wins when neighbors work together.

Al Rosen, a Jewish man, takes on the jobs of his Christian neighbors on Christmas Eve and day so they can spend the holiday with their families, starting a tradition that lasts for decades.

In Eliza Davis's day, Charles Dickens was the most celebrated living writer in England. But some of his books reflected a prejudice that was all too common at the time: prejudice against Jewish people. Eliza was Jewish, and her heart hurt to see a Jewish character in Oliver Twist portrayed as ugly and selfish. She wanted to speak out about how unfair that was, even if it meant speaking out against the great man himself. So she wrote a letter to Charles Dickens. What happened next is history.

Drama, family secrets, and a KGB spy in his own kitchen! How will Yevgeny ever fulfill his parents' dream that he become a national hero when he doesn't even have his own room? He's not a star athlete or a legendary ballet dancer. In the tiny apartment he shares with his Baryshnikov-obsessed mother, poetry-loving father, continually outraged grandmother, and safely talented brother, all Yevgeny has is his little pencil, the underside of a massive table, and the doodles that could change everything. With equal amounts charm and solemnity, award-winning author and artist Eugene Yelchin recounts in hilarious detail his childhood in Cold War Russia as a young boy desperate to understand his place in his family.

On a spring morning, neighbors Valentina Kaplan and Oksana Savchenko wake up to an angry red sky. A reactor at the nuclear power plant where their fathers work--Chernobyl--has exploded. Before they know it, the two girls, who've always been enemies, find themselves on a train bound for Leningrad to stay with Valentina's estranged grandmother, Rita Grigorievna. In their new lives in Leningrad, they begin to learn what it means to trust another person. Oksana must face the lies her parents told her all her life. Valentina must keep her grandmother's secret, one that could put all their lives in danger. And both of them discover something they've wished for: a best friend. But how far would you go to save your best friend's life? 

Caldecott Honoree and Sibert Medalist Peter Sís honors a man who saved hundreds of children from the Nazis. In 1938, twenty-nine-year-old Nicholas Winton saved the lives of almost 700 children trapped in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia--a story he never told and that remained unknown until an unforgettable TV appearance in the 1980s reunited him with some of the children he saved. Czech-American artist, MacArthur Fellow, and Andersen Award winner Peter Sís dramatizes Winton's story in this distinctive and deeply personal picture book. He intertwines Nicky's efforts with the story of one of the children he saved--a young girl named Vera, whose family enlisted Nicky's aid when the Germans occupied their country. As the war passes and Vera grows up, she must find balance in her dual identities--one her birthright, the other her choice. Nicky & Vera is a masterful tribute to a humble man's courageous efforts to protect Europe's most vulnerable, and a timely portrayal of the hopes and fears of those forced to leave their homes and create new lives.

Link, Michael, and Dana live in a quiet town. But it's woken up very quickly when someone sneaks into school and vandalizes it with a swastika. Nobody can believe it. How could such a symbol of hate end up in the middle of their school? Who would do such a thing? Because Michael was the first person to see it, he's the first suspect. Because Link is one of the most popular guys in school, everyone's looking to him to figure it out. And because Dana's the only Jewish girl in the whole town, everyone's treating her more like an outsider than ever. The mystery deepens as more swastikas begin to appear. Some students decide to fight back and start a project to bring people together instead of dividing them further. The closer Link, Michael, and Dana get to the truth, the more there is to face-not just the crimes of the present, but the crimes of the past. With Linked, Gordon Korman, the author of the acclaimed novel Restart, poses a mystery for all readers where the who did it? isn't nearly as important as the why? 

Seven-year-old Miriam places her baby brother's basket in the Nile River, watches the Pharaoh's daughter draw him out and name him Moses, and ponders a vision of other water parting. Includes note on the biblical story on which this is based.

In an alternate ninth century, twelve-year-old Anya and a new friend face a Viking and a tsar to protect the water dragon that saved her life, putting her family's home at risk.

Brings to life a not too distant history of immigration to Ellis Island. When it's time for nine-year-old Gittel and her mother to leave their homeland behind and go to America for the promise of a new life, a health inspection stops any chance of Gittel's mother joining her daughter on the voyage. Knowing she may never see her mother again, Gittel must find the courage within herself to leave her family behind.

Just as her ancestors were forced to leave Spain during the Inquisition, Flory flees Europe for a new life in the United States, bringing with her a precious harmoniku and a passion for Ladino music.

Twelve-year-old Imani, the only black girl in Hebrew school, is preparing for her bat mitzvah and hoping to find her birth parents when she discovers the history of adoption in her own family through her great-grandma Anna's Holocaust-era diary.

Moses Feldman and Mohammed Hassan both live on Flatbush Avenue, but when they meet at the grocery store they quickly become best friends, sharing a picnic while their families prepare for the holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Ramadan.

In 1983 seventh-grader David Da-Wei Horowitz has a lot to worry about--his bar mitzvah is coming soon, his Jewish and Chinese grandmothers argue about everything, his teammates for the upcoming trivia contest, Scott and Hector, do not like each other, he is beginning to notice girls, and Scott has persuaded him to begin digging a fallout shelter just in case the Cold War heats up.

Yaffa and Fatima live on neighboring date farms. When very little rain leads to a poor harvest, both women go to extra measures to make sure that their neighbor doesn't go hungry.

As he tries to survive Hannukah, 1971 in the suburbs of the suburbs of Los Angeles, middle-school magician Joel learns to appreciate life's small miracles with the help of an unusual stranger he meets on a bus.

Sophia knits a special hat for her elderly neighbor and knitting teacher, Mrs. Goldman.

A celebration of the extraordinary life of Ezra Jack Keats, creator of The Snowy Day.

A tour of Israel profiles such sites as the Old City of Jerusalem, modern Tel Aviv, and the Biblical Zoo while introducing the region's diverse cultures and customs.

A look at the early life of Israel's first female prime minster shares a story from her childhood in which, at age nine, she organized her friends to raise money to buy textbooks for immigrant classmates.