Reviews
Always an Olivia: A Remarkable Family History
To explain why each generation of their family has an Olivia, an African American woman tells her great-granddaughter about their Jewish family’s journey across the globe to escape reli-gious persecution. Soft paintings add subtle intensity to this story highlighting the importance View →
Hanukkah Moon
For Hanukkah, Isobel visits her aunt Luisa, who “just moved here from Mex-ico,” and learns new holiday traditions. Though the educational aspect of the text can overwhelm its sense of story, the depiction of Sephardic traditions is welcome. Mosz’s earthy desert tones… View →
When Rufkin discovers a four-year-old marooned with a life-size puppet on a wrecked riverboat, he’s swept into oddball hijinks that cast him adrift on the Old Ocean, consorting with Queen Sibilla of Fontania and thwarting Madam Butterfly’s devious plot to enthrall the deep-dragon. The… View →
The Bat-Chen Diaries
Fifteen-year-old Bat-Chen Shahak was killed by a suicide bomber in Tel Aviv. She left behind a diary, poems, and letters about love, death, war, and peace. Bat-Chen also wrote about school, friends, boyfriends, and hopes for the future. Her writing is naive but touching, with hints of… View →
The lives and conversations of four teenage friends embarking on required military service act as a frame-work to describe the structure of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Though this setup is forced and awkward, the text effectively explains the branches of… View →