Eliza Naumann, a seemingly unremarkable nine-year-old, expects never to fit into her gifted family: her autodidact father, Saul, absorbed in his study of Jewish mysticism; her brother, Aaron, the vessel of his father's spiritual ambitions; and her brilliant but distant lawyer-mom, Miriam. But when Eliza sweeps her school and district spelling bees in quick succession, Saul takes it as a sign that she is destined for greatness. In this altered reality,...

While preparing for her bat mitzvah--and trying to make sense of her own life--Zippy discovers she has magical abilities when she conjures up a beautiful girl with no memory and wings like an angel to whom she is connected. Hi, whoever is reading this. I'm Zipporah Chava McConnell, but everyone calls me Zippy. Things used to be simple--until a few weeks ago. Now my best friend, Bea, is acting funny; everyone at school thinks I'm weird; and my mom...

When eleven-year-old Milla's best friend Honey joins her school for sixth grade, Milla finds herself in her friend's shadow, but as the year progresses through the Jewish holidays Milla tries to cope with the tensions and the dramas of school--including the death of a beloved teacher.

"Buying and moving into the run-down Jewel Motor Inn in upstate New York wasn't eleven-year-old Miriam Brockman's dream, but at least it's an adventure. Miriam befriends Kate, whose grandmother owns the diner next door, and finds comfort in the company of Maria, the motel's housekeeper, and her Uncle Mordy, who comes to help out for the summer. "--

Fanny Herself (1917) is a novel by Edna Ferber. Inspired by her experience as a young Jewish woman from the Midwest, Fanny Herself is the story of a young woman who recognizes the unhappiness in her life and decides to risk it all for something better. Lighthearted in nature, yet serious in its ideals, Ferber's novel recalls the best of Fitzgerald in its unswerving commitment to humanity in all its beauty and heartbreak. "You could not have lived...

Ruby is the youngest child in the tightly knit Bronstein family, a sensitive, observant girl who looks up to her older brothers and is in awe of her stern but gentle father, a Holocaust survivor whose past and deep sense of morality inform the family's life. But when Ruby is ten, her eldest brother enters the hospital and emerges as someone she barely recognizes. It is only the first in a startling series of tragedies that befall the Bronsteins and...

This growing up business isn't always what it's cracked up to be: it can be complicated and scary and seem impossibly hard. With all the choices and challenges before her, how does a girl become a young Jewish woman? The JGirl's Guide is a first-of-its-kind book of practical, real-world advice using Judaism as a compass for the journey through adolescence. This newly updated and expanded survival guide for coming of age explores the wisdom and experiences...

Oreo, a biracial black girl from Philadelphia, searches for her Jewish father in New York City, navigating the labyrinth of sound studios, brothels, and subway tunnels of Manhattan in a journey of self-discovery.

2014 Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature
Patrick Modiano opens Dora Bruder by telling how in 1988 he stumbled across an ad in the personal columns of the New Year's Eve 1941 edition of Paris Soir. Placed by the parents of a 15-year-old Jewish girl, Dora Bruder, who had run away from her Catholic boarding school, the ad sets Modiano off on a quest to find out everything he can about Dora and why, at the height of German...

The continuing adventures of five sisters growing up in a Jewish family in New York in the early twentieth century. Ella finds a boyfriend and Henny disagrees with Papa over her curfew; a single uncle findss romance; World War I approaches and the family heads to Rockaway Beach to avoid infection during an outbreak of infantile paralysis.