Titoli in Ebraica

Every morning, Baila klops (Yiddish for "bangs") on all the village doors to wake people up so they get to synagogue on time. At each house she sings, "Get up! It's early, but soon will be later. Roll out of bed to serve your Creator!" But one day, Eliezer the blacksmith does not want to get up. A neighbor's music kept him up. The neighbor can't sleep because of a howling baby who can't sleep because all she wants is a bagel, and Bentzi the baker is always sold out. Can Baila make sure everyone gets to synagogue on time and has fresh bagels to eat?

Grover and his friends are getting ready for Shabbat. First they clean the house and bake challah. They say the blessings, and then they eat a tasty Shabbat dinner.

Ruthie can’t wait to celebrate Hanukkah. And what makes Hanukkah even better? Pajamakkahs! Ruthie wants to wear them all eight nights, but her parents agree only if she can keep them spotless until the Hanukkah Pajamakkah Party. But eight nights is a long time, and a lot can happen. With a splish, squelch, and a splash, Ruthie keeps her promise of having spotless pajamakkahs in time for the party.

Welcome to Passover, a Jewish holiday that has been celebrated for thousands of years. The heart of Passover is the seder—a meal full of rituals, special foods, and songs—where we gather together to retell the story of the Exodus, when the Jewish people achieved freedom from Egypt.

What a happy day! Zachary’s baby sister will have her naming ceremony. In the temple! With his moms, the congregation, and all their friends! He’s so excited he can barely contain it. On the walk from their home, they meet neighbor after neighbor who want to know the baby’s name. But—not yet!—his mothers tell him. The tradition is to have a great reveal at the ceremony! So they invite each neighbor to come along. A colorful, diverse parade blooms along the route, until … At last it’s time, and Zachary gets to reveal his sister’s name.

"Why are you crying?" Sophie asks the imaginary monster in her closet. "You're not afraid of me anymore," the monster says. "No one else can see or hear me. I need a new job." He follows Sophie to breakfast, out to Bubbe and Zayde's car, and to the shul. At synagogue, Bubbe helps lead the service. "She's kvelling," Sophie says to the monster. "I want to kvell," he says, and they join in the singing. Then Sophie uses her imagination to write a story about her monster.

A family of bears is getting ready for the Passover seder, preparing all the items for the seder plate. When the time comes in the seder for hiding the afikomen, Grandma breaks the middle matzah into two pieces. She hides the bigger piece, the afikomen, that the kids will eagerly search for later in the seder. It's a good thing one little bear has turned his toy elephant into an Afiko-Sniffer! The invention sniffs out apples in a bowl, eggs in the fridge, and horseradish in the pantry, but can it help find the afikomen?

Shaindy Goodman feels awkward, overlooked. Across the street and in another league, elegant Gayil lives the life of a queen bee: gorgeous, liked and admired, the perfect Bais Yaakov Middle School girl. Even her school uniform looks chic. So it’s more than a shock when Shaindy sees Gayil in the window looking at her and holding a sign with five little words: want to know a secret? Gayil’s found a way to break into their school after hours and asks Shaindy to help pull off a series of harmless pranks in their classroom. But mischief soon becomes malice.

Life is becoming ever more terrifying for the Jewish community as the Second World War envelops their lives. For twelve-year-old Dina and her sisters, things get even harder when their father dies. Their mother must go back to work and despite many objections, the family adjusts to the arrival of their new housekeeper, Nina, who is not Jewish. But Nina’s role changes dramatically when the Nazis invade their small Ukrainian town.

Henny has grown up with her father’s boat, the Gerda III, as a home away from home. She loves sailing the waters between Denmark and Sweden, carried along by the salt breeze. But when Nazi rule tightens in Copenhagen, Henny joins the resistance. And when Hitler orders the Gestapo to round up all Jewish citizens, Henny realizes that the Gerda III isn’t just a boat—it’s a means of escape for her Jewish neighbors. Safety and freedom are just across the channel in Sweden—as long as Henny doesn’t get caught.

Kathy Kacer’s second book in her middle grade series about heroic rescues during WWII tells the tale of siblings Helen and Henry, and history’s most famous mime. Desperate to save them from the Nazis, Henry and Helen’s mother makes the harrowing decision to take her children from their home in 1940s Germany and leave them in the care of strangers in France. The brother and sister must hide their Jewish identity to pass for orphans being fostered at a convent in the foreign land.

It’s 1936 and life is becoming dangerous for the Jews of Krakow. As incidents of violence and persecution increase day by day, Anna begs her father to leave Poland, but he insists it’s impossible. How could he give up his position as an acclaimed clarinetist in the Krakow Philharmonic Orchestra? When Anna and her father barely escape from a group of violent thugs, it becomes clear that the family must leave. But how? There seems to be only one possibility.

The great babka bake-off is on! Esther and Hester’s new neighbor, Sylvester, will gladly be their babka tester, and decide which sister’s Babka is the best. With cat Lester and dog Chester, the new friends enjoy a delicious Shabbat.

Luis de Torres is a secret Jew, a Catholic convert, who, in his heart, remains Jewish. When the Inquisition comes and Jews are forced to leave Spain, Luis decides to join a sailing expedition to new lands. He has just his faith, his wits, and a silver hamsa to protect him on his journey. And could it be that Jewish tradition helps protect the ship?

When a small lamb scampers away from her flock, the young shepherd Moses wonders whether he should chase after her or let her fend for herself in the wilderness. He decides to go after her, not knowing that God is watching. God sees that Moses is the kind of leader who will take care of all the Jewish people when the time comes to leave Egypt.

Parents celebrate baby’s first grin to baby’s first word, and all the milestones in between in this book featuring Ladino words, the language of the Sephardic Jewish community. Mazal bueno! Go, baby go!

Irene grew up traveling around Germany with her family’s circus, surrounded by her loved ones and thrilling the crowds with her performance on the high wire…until one day, the audience boos. The Lorch family is Jewish, and the increasing power of Adolf Hitler’s Nazis has put them all in grave danger.

A mystical and transcendent journey of two wanderers, an 11-year-old boy and an old man to whom the boy has been entrusted by his father, a Jew, fleeing the ravages of the war by the late award winning author, Aharon Appelfeld. The old man is a former Ukrainian commander, revered by the soldiers under his command, who has gone blind and chosen the life of a wanderer as his last spiritual adventure.

In the new country, Shirley and her family all have big dreams. Take the family store: Shirley has great ideas about how to make it more modern! Prettier! More profitable! She even thinks she can sell the one specialty no one seems to want to try: Mama’s homemade gefilte fish. But her parents think she’s too young to help. And anyway they didn’t come to America for their little girl to work. “Go play with the cat!” they urge.  

Anya and the Dragon is the story of fantasy and mayhem in 10th century Eastern Europe, where headstrong 11-year-old Anya is a daughter of the only Jewish family in her village. When her family's livelihood is threatened by a bigoted magistrate, Anya is lured in by a friendly family of fools, who promise her money in exchange for helping them capture the last dragon in Kievan Rus. This seems easy enough, until she finds out that the scary old dragon isn't as old - or as scary - as everyone thought. Now Anya is faced with a choice: save the dragon, or save her family.