Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category
Book Review | Celebrate Rosh Hashanah & Yom Kippur
by Deborah Heiligman
Score: 3
© 2007, National Geographic Books.
Part of the National Geographic Holidays Around the World Series, this is an excellent introduction to the High Holidays for young children and their families. Pages filled with colorful pictures of Jews around the world celebrating Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur accompany simple explanatory text describing these holidays. At the back [...]
Book Review | The Secret Shofar of Barcelona
by Jacqueline Dembar Greene
Score: 4
Illustrated by Doug Chayka.
© 2009, KarBen Publishing.
The author looks to a Sephardic legend for this well-written story about a Spanish converso (secret Jew) who cleverly enables his secret community of Jews to hear the sound of the shofar at Rosh Hashanah. Set in Barcelona, during the Spanish Inquisition, Ms. Greene creates a story that [...]
Book Review | Busing Brewster
by Richard Michelson
Score: 3.5
illustrated by R.G. Roth
© 2010, Alfred A. Knopf.
Teach Them to Your Children. Richard Michelson has written another excellent piece of historical fiction, this time about the “forced busing” of black students into white schools during the 1970s. Using a minimum of words and supported by the 70s-style ink and watercolor collages of R.G. Roth, he [...]
Book Review | mockingbird (mok’ing-bûrd)
by Kathryn Erskine
Score: 3.5
© 2010, Philomel Books, an imprint of Penguin Group, USA.
Caitlin is in Fifth Grade when her older brother, Devon, is shot and killed during a school shooting. Caitlin has Asperger’s Syndrome, and Devon was the one person in the world who could help her navigate life’s difficulties and do things “the right way.” Everyone is [...]
