Reviews
Izzy the Whiz and Passover McClean
“If you got rid of your sister and the fish in the pot, gave your mom a migraine, and invited the Cat in the Hat to clean up the house for Passover, you just might get this book. When Izzy the Whiz is admonished by his stressed-out mother for a bedroom crammed with Passover… View →
Hannah's Way
“Hannah smiled as she folded her hands in front of her on her desk when Miss Hartley declared, ‘This Saturday is our fall picnic.’ Her family had just moved from Minneapolis to northern Minnesota and it would be the perfect time to make a few new friends. Hannah’s heart View →
The Girl Who Owned a City: The Graphic Novel
“Jones’s illustrations are shaded in brown and green earth tones and are filled with movement and life. The faces of the children are angular and interesting, looking realistically like kids who have been struggling to survive. This will be an ideal recommendation for readers View →
Nathan Blows Out the Hanukkah Candles
“Jacob’s older brother, Nathan, celebrates the lighting of the menorah in his own unique way, as he does everything else, by blowing out the candles as soon as they are lit. Nathan exhibits behavior that we associate with autism, but Jacob just finds it annoying. He is thrilled… View →
Dinosaur Goes to Israel
“Our AJL colleague, Diane Rauchwerger, has charmed children with stories featuring a dinosaur who celebrates Judaism. In this, her fourth book illustrated by Jason Wolff, Dino joins his human friend on a visit to Israel. The book does more than tell the… View →
Hannah's Way
“Hannah’s Way is an American Jewish story that has not been told in picture books before. The time is the 1920s and the place is Northeastern Minnesota, a rural iron mining area called the Iron Range. After her father loses his job in Minneapolis, Hannah’s family moves to… View →
Lights Out Shabbat
“In her first children’s book, Shulimson tells a sweet story about keeping the Sabbath even when the unexpected occurs. When a snowstorm knocks out the power at his grandparents’ house in Georgia soon after the Shabbat candles are lit, a little boy finds that a Sabbath without… View →
Lights Out Shabbat
“A rare snowstorm in Georgia knocks out the electricity one Friday night just as Shabbat begins. A boy spends the visit with his grandparents playing in the snow and enjoying their time together. Just after Havdalah (the end of the Jewish Sabbath), the power is restored. ‘It… View →
Sadie and the Big Mountain
“’Nursery school was lots of fun and Sadie smiled as she filed into Temple Beth El with her friends. There were lots of things to do and she “loved the Hebrew songs they sang during music,’ playing with blocks, climbing on the gym, and stacking up the building… View →
“Jodie’s father was an archaeologist of note and she dreamed of working the digs like he did when she grew up. When she found the afikomen she got a flashlight as a reward and was hoping that ‘her cousin Zach would help her uncover treasures hidden deep inside the… View →
The Girl Who Owned a City: The Graphic Novel
“Like the original—first published in 1975—this is a fast-paced story with philosophical underpinnings, moving through time with effective montages of work and children’s drawings as the survivors attempt to create a new society. Jones’s art is colorful, bold, and… View →
Red Bird Sings: The Story of Zitkala-Ša, Native American Author, Musician, and Activist
“Zitkala-Sa is…an interesting figure…and one who rarely turns up in collective or individual biographies; this account offers insight not just into her achievements but into the complexity of identity.” —The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s… View →
Popular Clone
“Gadget geeks will thrill at the wildly imaginative inventions that populate the Bas household….®eaders will likely end up fantasizing about what they could get away with if only they too had a Two.” —The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Literature View →
Hannah's Way
“Sometimes the tiniest actions are the most heroic. In this book—based on a true story—the heroes are children. Illustrator Gustavson is very good at painting eyes. Even when the characters have their eyelids closed, it’s easy to read their expressions. Mostly they look View →
Sadie and the Big Mountain
“A week-long unit on the holiday of Shavuot has one preschool class excitedly anticipating a planned reenactment of the hike Moses took up Mt. Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments. Resourceful Sadie, of Sadie’s Sukkah Breakfast (2011), enjoys attending her… View →
The White Zone
“Based on actual events, this novel is a realistic depiction of children caught up in hostilities they cannot fully understand…. Marsden’s detailed descriptions of everyday life make this culture come alive.” —School Library Journal View →
“Little Marcel grows up in Strasbourg, on the border between France and Germany, fascinated with the silent film star Charlie Chaplin. He, too, wants to use only his gestures and the medium of silence to make people laugh and cry. But Hitler intervenes when the boy is 16, and… View →
Lights Out Shabbat
“Shulimson’s first children’s book is a sweet story of a boy’s overnight visit to his grandparents’ house. It’s an unusual Friday in Georgia, for the lights go out and it snows. According to the rules of Shabbat, no light may be either turned on or off during the Sabbath, so Papa… View →
The Girl Who Owned a City: The Graphic Novel
“Just as ideologically unsettling—and patchwork—as ever, Nelson’s 1975 post-apocalyptic tale gets a noir graphic adaptation. Seeing the danger in trying to live apart after a virus kills off every adult and adolescent, Lisa organizes a growing crowd of the less-aggressive… View →
Fall Mixed Up
“The watercolor illustrations are fun to view as they capture each word explicitly. Children will get the pleasure of correcting each incorrect statement.” —Library Media Connection View →
“Marcel Marceau, Master of Mime, by Gloria Spielman, illustrated by Manon Gauthier (Kar-Ben). I confess I have always been a mime-mocker. Walking against the wind? Trapped in a box? Climbing a ladder? Oh cripes, cut it out and say something! But I’m eating my own words… View →
Nathan Blows Out the Hanukkah Candles
“Based on a true story, Nathan Blows Out the Hanukkah Candles by Tami Lehman-Wilzig with Nicole Katzman, illustrated by Jeremy Tugeau is a truly beautiful way of introducing young children ages 5 to 9 to a family with a special needs child. The story is told by View →
Nathan Blows Out the Hanukkah Candles
“Nathan Blows Out the Hanukkah Candles by Tami Lehman-Wilzig with Nicole Katzman, illustrated by Jeremy Tugeau (Kar-Ben, ages 5-9) is a tender story about how a family embraces its autistic son and his sibling at Chanukah. Katzman, who is the mother of the real Nathan, is… View →
Green Bible Stories for Children
“Beginning with the story of Creation, according to our author, the Bible teaches readers to respect the land and conserve natural resources. Stories from the Bible are retold in the author’s own language, often humorously. Titles of stories include: Greener Pastures, Abraham and… View →