Nechama lives in a tiny Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty with an extreme­ly small school. When the only oth­er girl her age moves away, she needs to decide whether to join the grade ahead in school or to leave her par­ents and many sib­lings to go to a school away from her town and live with anoth­er fam­i­ly. Leah, who is also in 8th grade, lives in a large Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty and goes to a won­der­ful school, but has always want­ed a sis­ter. When the two girls meet at an amuse­ment park, and get stuck at the top of the Fer­ris wheel togeth­er, a match is made. Leah’s par­ents offer to let Nechama live with them so she can go to school in their town. The girls become close imme­di­ate­ly, and both are a lit­tle sur­prised that get­ting used to hav­ing a ​“sis­ter” takes some time. They grap­ple with ques­tions of how much time to spend togeth­er, the need not to appear to shut out the oth­er girls, and, of course, Leah’s mother’s mys­te­ri­ous ill­ness. The read­er fol­lows them through the 8th grade school year, as they do their com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice at a home for the elder­ly, go to school, and work on a big Purim cel­e­bra­tion. What­ev­er dif­fi­cul­ties these girls face, they han­dle with grace and smiles, and every­thing always works out for the best in the end. Adults and read­ers more accus­tomed to sec­u­lar fic­tion may find the char­ac­ters a lit­tle sac­cha­rine and the rapid res­o­lu­tion of their prob­lems some­what sim­plis­tic, but this is a far bet­ter nov­el than most Ortho­dox fic­tion for girls. Ages 10 – 14.