A warmhearted holiday tale successfully portrays an underrepresented corner of American Judaism—of African-American history,...
It’s a wintry spring in 1930 when an 11-year-old Jewish girl gets a lesson in friendship, the Jewish holidays, and America.
Miriam has always lived in Brooklyn, but now Papa and Mama are taking the long ship journey to escort family from the Old Country. For the time being, Miriam lives with her loving grandparents Bubby and Zayde on their farm in upstate New York. Instead of bialys and whitefish for breakfast, Miriam eats eggs she finds herself and warm milk “fresh from the cow.” The hired men who hop off the freight train are nice, and Miriam can have one of the barn cat’s kittens for her very own. Even her loneliness is abated when she meets the secret stranger hiding in the barn. Cissy, also 11, is the sister of one of the hired men. Joe doesn’t want Cissy to be sent to an orphanage, so she rides the rails with him from job to job in secret. Miriam explains the festivals of Purim and Passover to Cissy while learning a holiday lesson from Cissy’s friendship. The relationship between a white Jewish girl and a black girl from Mississippi is focused on Miriam’s inner life and chance to be a savior. Aside from some religious metaphors, this is not an exploration of interracial or cross-class friendships.
A warmhearted holiday tale successfully portrays an underrepresented corner of American Judaism—of African-American history, not so much. (author’s note) (Historical fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4598-1425-7
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Orca
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
Certain to elicit both gales of giggles and winces of sympathy (not to mention recognition) from young readers.
First volume of a planned three, this edited version of an ongoing online serial records a middle-school everykid’s triumphs and (more often) tribulations through the course of a school year.
Largely through his own fault, mishaps seem to plague Greg at every turn, from the minor freak-outs of finding himself permanently seated in class between two pierced stoners and then being saddled with his mom for a substitute teacher, to being forced to wrestle in gym with a weird classmate who has invited him to view his “secret freckle.” Presented in a mix of legible “hand-lettered” text and lots of simple cartoon illustrations with the punch lines often in dialogue balloons, Greg’s escapades, unwavering self-interest and sardonic commentary are a hoot and a half.
Certain to elicit both gales of giggles and winces of sympathy (not to mention recognition) from young readers. (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: April 1, 2007
ISBN: 0-8109-9313-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2007
SEEN & HEARD
PERSPECTIVES
The journey is even gently funny—Omakayas’s brother spends much of the year with a porcupine on his head. Charming and...
This third entry in the Birchbark House series takes Omakayas and her family west from their home on the Island of the Golden-Breasted Woodpecker, away from land the U.S. government has claimed.
Difficulties abound; the unknown landscape is fraught with danger, and they are nearing hostile Bwaanag territory. Omakayas’s family is not only close, but growing: The travelers adopt two young chimookoman (white) orphans along the way. When treachery leaves them starving and alone in a northern Minnesota winter, it will take all of their abilities and love to survive. The heartwarming account of Omakayas’s year of travel explores her changing family relationships and culminates in her first moon, the onset of puberty. It would be understandable if this darkest-yet entry in Erdrich’s response to the Little House books were touched by bitterness, yet this gladdening story details Omakayas’s coming-of-age with appealing optimism.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-06-029787-9
Page Count: 208
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2008
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
