Campbell Hall

Jewish Fiction Bibliography

398.2 Hir

A wise old rabbi finally rids the village of the witches that terrorize it every night that the moon is full.

398.22 Bro

Brodsky, Beverly. The Golem : a Jewish legend. 1st ed. Philadelphia: Lippincott, [1976].

A retelling of the Jewish legend of the golem created by Rabbi Lev to protect the Jews of Prague from the angry mob.

398.2 Sin

F Ken

398.2 Zem

Unable to stand his overcrowded and noisy home any longer, a poor man goes to the Rabbi for advice.

J Oss

Ossowski, Leonie. Star without a sky. Minneapolis: Lerner Pub. Co, [1985].

In the last chaotic days of World War II, five young Germans discover a Jewish boy hiding in a cellar and are torn over whether or not to turn him over to the Nazi authorities as the law demands.

J You

Youdovin, Susan Schaalman. Why does it always rain on Sukkot? Niles, Ill: A. Whitman, [1990].

When the chief angel gave the Jewish holidays their gifts, Sukkot, fearing he was left out, cried, and each year, remembering that sadness, he weeps again.

F Ozi

Ozick, Cynthia and Ozick, Cynthia. The shawl. 1st ed. New York: Knopf, [1989].

398.2 Col

Cole, Joanna. It's too noisy! 1st ed. New York: T.Y. Crowell, [1989].

Unable to stand his noisy and overcrowded home any longer, a farmer goes to the Wise Man for advice.

398.2 Aus c.2

Ausubel, Nathan, ed. A treasury of Jewish folklore.

398.2 Les

Lester, Julius. How many spots does a leopard have? and other tales. New York: Scholastic, [1989].

An illustrated collection of twelve folk tales, ten African and two Jewish.

J Sus

Sussman, Susan. Hanukkah : eight lights around the world. Niles, Ill: A. Whitman, [1988].

Eight short stories depict eight contemporary Jewish families in different countries celebrating the holiday.

J Mel

Melnikoff, Pamela. Plots and players. 1st American ed. New York: Bedrick/Blackie, [1989, 1988].

Robin, Philip, and Frances, exiled Portuguese Jews secretly practicing their faith in intolerant sixteenth-century London, fight against the poison of prejudice in trying to save the life of Queen Elizabeth's Jewish doctor.

J Yol

Yolen, Jane. The devil's arithmetic. New York, N.Y., U.S.A: Viking Kestrel, [1988].

Hannah resents stories of her Jewish heritage and of the past until, when opening the door during a Passover Seder, she finds herself in Poland during World War II where she experiences the horrors of a concentration camp, and learns why she--and we--need to remember the past.

398.22 Elk

While visiting King Solomon, the Queen of Sheba tests his wisdom with increasingly difficult problems.

F Gre 10/91/Greene

Greene, Bette. Summer of my German soldier. New York: Dial Press, [1973].

Sheltering an escaped German prisoner of war is the beginning of some shattering experiences for a 12-year-old Jewish girl in Arkansas.

398.2 Rot

Rothenberg, Joan. Yettele's feathers. 1st ed. New York: Hyperion Books for Children, [1995].

Note: Yettele, who loves to gossip, is finally taught a lesson by the Rabbi.

F Rot

In this autobiographical novel set in Nazi-occupied France, RenÂee, a young Jewish girl, and her family flee their home in Alsace and live a precarious existence in Paris until RenÂee and her sister escape to the shelter of a convent in Normandy.

J Lev

Levitin, Sonia. Silver days. 1st ed. New York: Atheneum, [1989].

Escaping from Hitler's Germany, a prosperous Jewish family lives in a New York City tenement until Papa decides to move the family to California.

J Org 12/89/Orgel

Orgel, Doris. The devil in Vienna. New York: Dial Press, [1978].

A Jewish girl and the daughter of a Nazi have been best friends since they started school, but in 1938 the thirteen-year-olds find their close relationship difficult to maintain.

J Bae

Baer, Edith. A frost in the night. New York: Pantheon Books, [1980].

Relates the experiences of a young Jewish girl growing up in a city in southern Germany during the period of Hitler's rise to power.

J Aar

Aaron, Chester. Gideon : a novel. 1st ed. New York: Lippincott, [1982].

After losing family and friends, Gideon must bury religion and identity in order to survive the Warsaw ghetto and Treblinka concentration camp during World War II.

J Bis c.2

Bishop, Claire Huchet. Twenty and ten. New York: Viking Press, [1952].

Twenty school children hide ten Jewish children from the Nazis during the occupation of France during World War II.

F Maz

Mazer, Harry. The last mission. New York: Delacorte Press, [1979].

In 1944 a 15-year-old Jewish boy tells his family he will travel in the West but instead, enlists in the United States Air Corps and is subsequently taken prisoner by the Germans.

398.2 Sch

J Pol

A homemade quilt ties together the lives of four generations of an immigrant Jewish family, remaining a symbol of their enduring love and faith.

J Cha

Chaikin, Miriam. I should worry, I should care. 1st ed. New York: Harper & Row, [1979].

A young Jewish girl and her family adjust to a new neighborhood and new friends at a time when the radio is telling of Hitler's rise to power in Europe.

J Coh

Fourth-grader Emily is forced to think about her Jewish heritage when the new boy, an Orthodox Jew, refuses to participate in the school Christmas celebrations.

J Coh c2

Cohen, Barbara. Molly's pilgrim. 1st ed. New York: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Books, [1983].

Told to make a doll like a pilgrim for the Thanksgiving display at school, Molly's Jewish mother dresses the doll as she herself dressed before leaving Russia to seek religious freedom--much to Molly's embarrassment.

J Ker

Kerr, Judith. When Hitler stole pink rabbit. New York: Dell, [1971].

Recounts the adventures of a nine-year-old Jewish girl and her family in the early 1930's as they travel from Germany to England.

J Sin

Singer, Isaac Bashevis. The golem. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, [1982].

A clay giant miraculously brought to life by a saintly rabbi saves a Jewish banker who has been falsely accused in the Prague of Emperor Rudolf II.

F Spi

Spiegelman, Art. Maus : a survivor's tale. New York: Pantheon Books, [1986].

J Tay

Taylor, Sydney. More all-of-a-kind family. New York: Dell, [1989, 1954].

The story of five young Jewish girls growing up in New York's lower east side before the first world war.

F Las

Lasky, Kathryn. Pageant. 1st ed. New York: Four Winds Press, [1986].

Sarah Benjamin, a Jewish teenager on the brink of Kennedy's New Frontier, wonders if she can endure four more years of Stuart Hall, Indianapolis's most exclusive, very Christian, and impossibly stuffy school for girls.

J Low 5/98

Lowry, Lois. Number the stars. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co, [1989].

In 1943, during the German occupation of Denmark, ten-year-old Annemarie learns how to be brave and courageous when she helps shelter her Jewish friend from the Nazis.

J Orl

Orlev, Uri. The man from the other side. 1st American ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, [1991].

Living on the outskirts of the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II, fourteen-year-old Marek and his grandparents shelter a Jewish man in the days before the Jewish uprising.

J Pol

Polacco, Patricia. Mrs. Katz and Tush. New York: Bantam Books, [1992].

A long-lasting friendship develops between Larnel, a young African-American, and Mrs. Katz, a lonely, Jewish widow, when Larnel presents Mrs. Katz with a scrawny kitten without a tail.

J Lev 5/98

A Jewish family fleeing Nazi Germany in 1938 endures innumerable separations before they are once again united.

398.22 Ren

A retelling of the traditional tale about a bee that repays King Solomon's kindness by helping him solve the Queen of Sheba's riddle.

J Hes

Hesse, Karen. Letters from Rifka. 1st ed. New York: H. Holt, [1992].

In letters to her cousin, a young Jewish girl chronicles her family's flight from Russia in 1919 and her own experiences when she must be left in Belgium for a while when the others emigrate to America.

J Ger

J Seg

Segal, Jerry and Pilkey, Dav. The place where nobody stopped. New York: Orchard Books, [1991].

A Jewish man plants himself in a lonely Russian baker's house and establishes a family while waiting for permission to go to America.

J Ros

At Christmas-Hanukkah time, a Christian woodcarver gives a carved angel to a young Jewish friend, who struggles with accepting the Christmas gift until he realizes that friendship means the same thing in any religion.

J Nix

Nixon, Joan Lowery. Land of hope. New York, NY: Bantam Books, [1992].

Rebekah, a fifteen-year-old Jewish immigrant arriving in New York City in 1902, almost abandons her dream of getting an education when she is forced to work in a sweatshop.

J Hes

Hest, Amy. Love you, soldier. 1st ed. New York: Four Winds Press, [1991].

Katie, a Jewish girl living in New York City during World War II, sees many dynamic changes in her world as she ages from seven to ten waiting for her father to return from the war.

398.2 Sch

A collection of Jewish traditional nursery tales from many different countries.

F Ber

Bergman, Tamar. Along the tracks. 1st American ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, [1991].

Recounts the adventures of a young Jewish boy who is driven from his home by the German invasion, becomes a refugee in the Soviet Union, is separated from his family, and undergoes many hardships before enjoying a normal home again.

398.2 San

Thirteen traditional Eastern European Jewish tales of the town of Chelm and its silly citizens.

F Spi c.2

F Pul 5/92/Pullman

Pullman, Philip. The tiger in the well. New York: Knopf, [1990].

In London in 1881, twenty-four-year-old Sally finds her young daughter and her possessions assailed by an unknown enemy, while a shadowy figure known as the Tzaddik involves her in his plot to defraud and exploit the hordes of Jewish immigrants pouring into the country.

398.2 Tre

398.2 Wis

Wisniewski, David. Golem. New York: Clarion Books, [1996].

A saintly rabbi miraculously brings to life a clay giant who helps him watch over the Jews of sixteenth-century Prague.

J Gre

Greene, Jacqueline Dembar. Out of many waters. New York: Walker, [1988].

Kidnapped from their parents during the Portuguese Inquisition and sent to work as slaves at a monastery in Brazil, two Jewish sisters attempt to make their way back to Europe to find their parents, but instead one becomes part of a group founding the first Jewish settlement in the United States.

J Orl

Orlev, Uri. The island on Bird Street. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, [1984, 1983].

During World War II a Jewish boy is left on his own for months in a ruined house in the Warsaw Ghetto, where he must learn all the tricks of survival under constantly life-threatening conditions.

J Sac

Sachs, Marilyn. Peter and Veronica. [1st ed.]. Garden City, N.Y: Doubleday,

[1969].

A twelve-year-old Jewish boy struggles to maintain his friendship with his tomboy classmate, Veronica, despite the opposition of their parents and the disapproval of his other friends.

J Coh

Describes how people in Billings, Montana joined together to fight a series of hate crimes against a Jewish family.

398.2 For

A collection of traditional stories from around the world, reflecting the cumulative wisdom of Sufi, Zen, Taoist, Buddhist, Jewish, Christian, African, and Native American cultures.

398.2 For

Unable to stand his overcrowded and noisy home any longer, a man goes to the wise old woman who lives nearby for advice.

J Mat

Matas, Carol. The garden. 1st ed. New York: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, [1997].

After leading a group of Jewish refugees to Israel after World War II, sixteen-year-old Ruth joins the Haganah, the Jewish Army, and helps her people fight to keep the land granted to them by the United Nations.

398.2 Pro

Explains how a botched mission by two angels created the town of fools known as Chelm.

J Las

Twelve-year-old Zippy, a Jewish immigrant from Russia, keeps a diary account of the first eighteen months of her family's life on the Lower East Side of New York City in 1903-1904.

J Bae

Baer, Edith. Walk the dark streets. 1st ed. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, [1998].

Continues the story of Eva, a young Jewish girl living in Nazi Germany where she and her parents experience increasing tensions in daily life while considering possibilities of escape.

F Ste

Steinberg, Milton. As a driven leaf. Northvale, N.J: J. Aronson, [1987].

J Kim

A tiny Jewish family living behind the wall of a synagogue must battle a frightening cat if they want candles for their Hanukkah menorah.

J Pol

During a scarlet fever epidemic one winter in Michigan, a Jewish family helps make Christmas special for their sick neighbors by making their own Hanukkah miracle. Based on a memory from the author's childhood.

J Kos

Marla, the only Jewish student in her fourth-grade class, wishes she celebrated Christmas like her best friend Lucy, until one year when she decides to learn all about Hanukkah and to teach her family about it too.

F Mat

After being released from Buchenwald at the end of World War II, fifteen-year-old Ruth risks her life to lead a group of children across Europe to Palestine.

F Lev

While traveling in Israel for the summer, seventeen-year-old Mitch decides to stay and pursue a life of Jewish orthodoxy, forcing him to make some important decisions about the family and life he is leaving in southern California.

F Ham

Hamill, Pete. Snow in August : a novel. 1st ed. Boston: Little, Brown, [1997].

F Mik

As the Roman army marches inexorably across the Judean desert towards the fortress of Masada, Simon and his family and friends prepare, along with the rest of the Jewish Zealots, to fight and never surrender.

F Maz

Mazer, Norma Fox. Good night, Maman. San Diego: Harcourt Brace, [1999].

After spending years fleeing from the Nazis in war-torn Europe, twelve-year-old Karin Levi and her older brother Marc find a new home in a refugee camp in Oswego, New York.

J Pol

A homemade quilt ties together the lives of four generations of an immigrant Jewish family, remaining a symbol of their enduring love and faith.

398.21 Sil

A Jewish version of the Cinderella story, in which a poor but educated young women captivates her "Prince Charming" a rabbi's son, at a Purim ball.

J Lev

Levine, Anna. Running on eggs. Chicago: Front Street/Cricket Books, [1999].

When Karen and Yasmine become friends as well as members of a mixed Arab and Jewish track team in Israel, relatives and friends of both girls disapprove of the relationship.

398.2 Kim

Note: When his sins threaten the lives of his beloved twin children, a Jewish

man finally repents of his wicked ways.

398.2 Gil

Gilman, Phoebe. Something from nothing. New York: Scholastic, [1992].

Note: In this retelling of a traditional Jewish folktale, Joseph's baby blanket

is transformed into ever smaller items as he grows until there is nothing

left--but then Joseph has an idea.

J Pol

Polacco, Patricia. The butterfly. New York: Philomel Books, [2000].

Note: During the Nazi occupation of France, Monique's mother hides a Jewish

family in her basement and tries to help them escape to freedom.

J Wil

Worried about the difficulties on his family's Massachusetts dairy farm, twelve-year-old JJ is willing to give up on his dreams of becoming a great clarinet player and on his friendship with a new Jewish classmate who shares his love of music.

Ahmanson Library