Hanukkah: The Fes­ti­val of Lights ​“With a sim­ple text alter­nat­ing between con­tem­po­rary cel­e­bra­tion and his­tor­i­cal back­ground, with vibrant­ly col­ored pic­tures, Hanukkah: The Fes­ti­val of Lights, teach­es young chil­dren about the festival’s sig­nif­i­cance and also cap­tures the warmth and excite­ment of one family’s obser­vance.” ‑Emi­ly Schneider

Today Tonight Tomor­row ​“Rowan Roth aims to be the star of her high school, and with only a day left until offi­cial grad­u­a­tion she’s feel­ing ner­vous; she’s focused on try­ing to out­do her fren­e­my, Neil McNair, who has been her rival since fresh­man year.” ‑Jil­lian Bietz

The Ninth Night of Hanukkah ​“The premise of an extra night of Hanukkah is instant­ly appeal­ing to chil­dren; who wouldn’t want to extend this joy­ous his­tor­i­cal hol­i­day in the midst of win­ter? Eri­ca Perl and Sha­har Kober’s tale of an addi­tion­al Hanukkah night is not a ges­ture towards the mate­r­i­al sat­is­fac­tion of extra presents or more com­fort food, but a mean­ing­ful trib­ute to fam­i­ly and com­mu­ni­ty.” ‑Emi­ly Schneider

Get a Grip, Vivy Cohen! ​“The first few chap­ters of this book are writ­ten as a series of let­ters by an eleven-year-old female mid­dle school stu­dent to a Major League super star pitch­er; the tone of the let­ters seem to be not quite main­stream. The let­ter writer, Vivian Jane Cohen, is a girl who wants to keep her eye on the ball in the only base­ball team her school has, which is all boys.” ‑Helen Weiss Pincus

Anya and the Nightin­gale ​“In this cap­ti­vat­ing fan­ta­sy nov­el about a brave girl unde­terred by dan­ger, the issues of friend­ship, cul­tur­al fusion, and Jew­ish iden­ti­ty are as cen­tral to the sto­ry as is the phys­i­cal adven­ture.” ‑Emi­ly Schneider

Col­or Me In ​“Díaz’s accom­plished debut is filled with warmth and humor, but nev­er hides the ugly truths that can plague fam­i­lies — espe­cial­ly when they haven’t worked to under­stand each other’s dif­fer­ences. For those ques­tion­ing their faith to teens who feel like they don’t quite belong any­where, Nevaeh’s jour­ney toward self-dis­­­cov­­ery is high­ly relat­able.” ‑Brandy Colbert

A Ceil­ing Made of Eggshells ​“Gail Car­son Levine’s new nov­el, A Ceil­ing Made of Eggshells, restores the dra­mat­ic real­i­ty of the time through the sto­ry of one Jew­ish girl and her fam­i­ly. Care­ful­ly researched and rich in his­tor­i­cal detail, the book cre­ates a full por­trait of the painful con­tra­dic­tions that defined the fif­­teenth-cen­­tu­ry Iber­ian Jew­ish world.” ‑Emi­ly Schneider

What I Like About You ​“What I Like About You speaks to mid­dle and high school read­ers by address­ing con­cerns over — friend­ships, anx­i­ety, grades, hopes, and issues in nav­i­gat­ing social media. Read­ers will relate to both the first-per­­son voice of Halle, and to the social media per­sona of Kels, who fakes her con­fi­dence in hash­tags and abbre­vi­a­tions. This book will cap­ti­vate with its engag­ing char­ac­ters, dra­mat­ic sto­ry line, and con­tem­po­rary set­ting.” ‑Paula Chaiken

Let­ters from Cuba ​“Toward the end of 1937, eleven-year-old Esther writes to her father in Cuba, beg­ging him to allow her to leave Poland and join him in his new home. Like many oth­er Euro­pean Jews in the years lead­ing up to World War II, he has sought refuge abroad and is plan­ning to send for his fam­i­ly when he has estab­lished a busi­ness and can afford to pay for their pas­sage.” ‑Emi­ly Schneider

Hap­py Lla­makkah! ​“The clev­er­ness and cre­ativ­i­ty of the title of this new pic­ture book may be rea­son enough to pluck it off the shelf and set­tle down for a ses­sion of read­ing aloud. Lau­ra Gehl cap­i­tal­izes on the recent lla­ma craze in chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture, adding a Jew­ish spin and a sense of pure lla­­ma-licious fun.” ‑Michal Hoschan­der Malen

Becom­ing RBG: Ruth Bad­er Ginsburg’s Jour­ney to Jus­tice ​“Deb­bie Levy and Whit­ney Gardner’s out­stand­ing graph­ic biog­ra­phy, Becom­ing RBG, tells the sto­ry of RBG’s per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al life. From inspi­ra­tion to oppo­si­tion, RBG moved for­ward with an with an unfail­ing con­vic­tion in her own abil­i­ty to effect incre­men­tal change.” ‑Emi­ly Schneider

The Eight Knights of Hanukkah ​“The Eight Knights of Hanukkah—with its quirky and love­able male and female mul­ti­cul­tur­al knights, their lady moth­er, and — of course — a das­tard­ly drag­on deter­mined to derail the hol­i­day cel­e­bra­tion. The knights are charged with a valiant quest. They are asked to right the world’s wrongs in time for the feast to be held on the last night of Hanukkah at which all the can­dles will be lit.” ‑Michal Hoschan­der Malen

Rec­om­mend­ed for You ​“Lau­ra Silverman’s new nov­el fea­tures Jew­ish pro­tag­o­nists nav­i­gat­ing the tur­moil of ado­les­cence in the style of a bright roman­tic com­e­dy. The book’s premise is rel­a­tive­ly reas­sur­ing for a con­tem­po­rary young adult nov­el. While Sil­ver­man does not min­i­mize Shoshana’s prob­lems, she does empha­size her character’s strengths and abil­i­ty to make sense of tough chal­lenges.” ‑Emi­ly Schneider

Some­day We Will Fly ​“In Rachel DeWoskin’s deep and har­row­ing nov­el, her char­ac­ters lives are more than just metaphors for the pre­car­i­ous­ness of Jew­ish exis­tence. This is an explo­ration of Jew­ish refugees who found shel­ter, of a kind, in Shang­hai dur­ing the War. The sense of life as a chaot­ic per­for­mance, its actors robbed of auton­o­my, may seem an obvi­ous struc­ture to impose on this time in his­to­ry.” ‑Emi­ly Schneider

The Way Back ​“Sav­it exper­i­ments with bound­aries, incor­po­rat­ing lit­er­ary allu­sions and even invent­ed mag­i­cal texts. He chal­lenges his char­ac­ters to defy the phys­i­cal laws that con­trol the uni­verse, as well as the deeply held beliefs that define their par­al­lel Jew­ish world. Read­ers will­ing to par­tic­i­pate in Bluma and Yehu­da Leib’s coura­geous chal­lenge will be reward­ed for their efforts. They will even learn that salt, cold met­al, and red thread can dri­ve away any demons they encounter.” ‑Emi­ly Schneider

Not Your All-Amer­i­can Girl ​“When sixth-grade stu­dent Lau­ren Horowitz tries out for her school play, she learns a harsh les­son about prej­u­dice. Gift­ed with a beau­ti­ful voice and hop­ing to be cast as a lead in a 1950s nos­tal­gia piece enti­tled Shake It Up, she is bit­ter­ly dis­ap­point­ed when the teacher direct­ing the play informs her that she just doesn’t look the part.” ‑Emi­ly Schneider