It’s 1986. Yasha Resnick is prepar­ing to become a bar mitz­vah when his par­ents move the fam­i­ly from their com­fort­able Brook­lyn sur­round­ings to an unfa­mil­iar New Jer­sey sub­urb. In Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach (referred to in the nov­el as Brighton), they are sur­round­ed by a com­mu­ni­ty of Russ­ian Jews, like them­selves. But Yasha’s hard-work­ing par­ents hope to com­plete their Amer­i­can Dream by mov­ing to a big­ger home in a com­par­a­tive­ly bucol­ic envi­ron­ment. For Yasha, that means the dif­fi­cult process of cul­tur­al assim­i­la­tion. Sud­den­ly, his cloth­ing, food, and New York accent bring him unwant­ed atten­tion, and con­flicts with his par­ents seem unre­solv­able. Mar­garet Gurevich’s mid­dle-grade nov­el sen­si­tive­ly por­trays the way one boy nav­i­gates dif­fi­cult changes, strug­gling to find the best of two worlds.

Adult hypocrisy is hard enough for Yasha to under­stand. Katya, the real estate agent who sold the Resnicks their new home in Rock­wood, New Jer­sey, belongs to one of the only oth­er Russ­ian fam­i­lies in the neigh­bor­hood. But she goes by Katie and has turned her back on her iden­ti­ty — as has her son, Alex, who is Yasha’s age. Katie gives Yasha a steady stream of advice on how to fit in. Bring­ing him Alex’s out­grown clothes, she encour­ages him to aban­don gold chains and den­im shorts for polo shirts and chi­nos. The aro­ma of stuffed cab­bage and Russ­ian sal­ad is unwel­come in the school cafe­te­ria, and Yasha’s name invites ridicule from Alex’s con­formist friends. Soon he has decid­ed to call him­self Jake, hop­ing to evade the hos­til­i­ty he con­fronts just by being himself. 

Yasha meets with Rab­bi Fred to prac­tice read­ing Torah and dis­cuss his speech. This expe­ri­ence is also a con­fus­ing con­trast to his Brook­lyn shul, where the expec­ta­tions of a boy’s per­for­mance were more lim­it­ed, and the per­son­al aspect of the mile­stone less impor­tant. In addi­tion, Rab­bi Fred expects Yasha to choose a mitz­vah project to enhance the sig­nif­i­cance of becom­ing a Jew­ish adult. When Yasha decides to meet with Bernie, a res­i­dent of the assist­ed liv­ing facil­i­ty where Mrs. Resnick works, what might have been a chore becomes a door to inter­gen­er­a­tional under­stand­ing. One of the most intense sources of ten­sion for Yasha is his father’s insis­tence that soc­cer, a Russ­ian obses­sion, is the only sport for his son to pur­sue. Yasha is fix­at­ed on base­ball and on the pos­si­bil­i­ty that the Mets might make it to the World Series. Sur­pris­ing­ly, Bernie is also an avid fan of the great Amer­i­can pas­time. His friend­ship with Yasha deep­ens, and becomes essen­tial for both of them.

Gure­vich does not avoid the painful real­i­ty of ado­les­cent peer group dynam­ics. Alex’s friends’ intol­er­ance bor­ders on cru­el­ty. They are deter­mined to build up their own self-esteem by tor­ment­ing Yasha, who is unable to dis­tance him­self emo­tion­al­ly from this famil­iar sit­u­a­tion. Gurevich’s scene of a hyper­com­pet­i­tive Monop­oly game among the boys evokes the high-stakes dra­ma root­ed in who will win and who will lose. Reliev­ing the mis­ery of rejec­tion, Yasha finds a new group of friends who not only accept him, but also enjoy the unfa­mil­iar ele­ments of Russ­ian cul­ture. The zefir treats his moth­er insists on bring­ing to a get-togeth­er remind one boy of Mallomars.

Even­tu­al­ly, Yasha does cel­e­brate an amaz­ing bar mitz­vah cer­e­mo­ny. The Mets are not the only ones to achieve an unlike­ly vic­to­ry in this high­ly rec­om­mend­ed and real­is­tic sto­ry of growth and change.