Chil­dren’s

Sab­ri­na: The Girl With a Hole in Her Heart

Wendy Lewis; Diane Lucas, illus.
  • Review
By – January 10, 2012
Ten-year-old Sab­ri­na lives in Zanz­ibar with her moth­er and sis­ter. A hole in her heart pre­vents her from run­ning and play­ing with the oth­er chil­dren. But luck­i­ly, the doc­tors from Save a Child’s Heart arrive near her vil­lage and offer to fly her to Israel for the much-need­ed surgery. Accom­pa­nied by an Israeli nurse, Sab­ri­na leaves her fam­i­ly behind and jour­neys to Israel. At the Save a Child’s Heart house, she meets chil­dren from all over the world. Her surgery is a suc­cess and after recov­er­ing, she is able to tour the coun­try before return­ing home. Col­or­ful car­toon illus­tra­tions com­bined with echocar­dio­gram images, pho­tographs, dia­grams, and text box­es com­ple­ment the nar­ra­tive. More infor­ma­tion about Save a Child’s Heart is append­ed along with a detailed expla­na­tion of Atri­al Sep­tal Defects and instruc­tions for mak­ing a heart pump and stetho­scope. The font, lay­out, and design have an ama­teur­ish, self-pub­lished look but par­ents or reli­gious school class­es look­ing for more infor­ma­tion on char­i­ta­ble orga­ni­za­tions in Israel (and pos­si­ble recip­i­ents of their tzedakah col­lec­tions) will appre­ci­ate this offer­ing. It also nice­ly high­lights one of the many ways that the Israeli med­ical pro­fes­sion comes to the aid of patients around the world. For ages 6 – 9

Rachel Kamin has been a syn­a­gogue librar­i­an and Jew­ish edu­ca­tor for over twen­ty-five years and has worked at North Sub­ur­ban Syn­a­gogue Beth El in High­land Park, IL since 2008, cur­rent­ly serv­ing as the Direc­tor of Life­long Learn­ing. A past chair of the Syd­ney Tay­lor Book Award Com­mit­tee and past edi­tor of Book Reviews for Chil­dren & Teens for the Asso­ci­a­tion of Jew­ish Libraries News & Reviews, her arti­cles and book reviews appear in numer­ous pub­li­ca­tions. She has been a mem­ber of the Amer­i­can Library Association’s Sophie Brody Book Award Com­mit­tee since 2021.

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