Jewish Stories for Middle GradersLike this list

34 items

• Across So Many Seas

  Behar, Ruth, 1956-

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  Spanning over five hundred years, a novel telling the stories of four girls from different generations of a Jewish family, many of them forced to leave their country and start a new life.

• The Girl Who Sang

  a Holocaust Memoir of Hope and Survival

  Nadel, Estelle,

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  A heartrending graphic memoir about a young Jewish girl's fight for survival in Nazi occupied Poland, The Girl Who Sang illustrates the power of a brother's love, the kindness of strangers, and finding hope when facing the unimaginable.

• Mendel the Mess-up

  LaBan, Terry,

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  Mendel has famously bad luck, but his penchant for trouble may be the key to saving his remote Jewish village when the Cossacks invade.

• Benji Zeb Is a Ravenous Werewolf

  Moulton, Deke,

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  Benji Zeb has a lot going on: school, his upcoming bar mitzvahan aggressive local rancher who hates Benji's family's kibbutz and wolf sanctuary. And he hasn't figured out what to do about Caleb, who has been bullying Benji pretty hard at school. And…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Resistance

  Nielsen, Jennifer A.,

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  In 1942 sixteen-year-old Chaya Lindner is a Jewish girl living in Nazi-occupied Poland, a courier who smuggles food and documents to the isolated Jewish ghettos in southern Poland, depending on her forged papers and "Aryan" features--but when a…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Two Wrong Halves of Ruby Taylor

  Panitch, Amanda,

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  Ruby feels like she is never Jewish enough compared to her cousin. If Ruby isn't Jewish enough for her own grandmother, how can she possibly be Jewish enough to fight a dybbuk?

• The Length of a String

  Weissman, Elissa Brent,

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  Twelve-year-old Imani, the only black girl in Hebrew school, is preparing for her bat mitzvah and hoping to find her birthparents when she discovers the history of adoption in her own family through her great-grandma Anna's Holocaust-era diary.

• Wishing on Matzo Ball Soup!

  Greenwald, Lisa,

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  When Ellie accidentally overhears that her family deli is most likely going to close, she does the only thing she can think of. She makes a wish on matzo ball soup.

• A World Worth Saving

  Lukoff, Kyle,

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  A groundbreaking, action-packed, and ultimately uplifting adventure that intertwines elements of Jewish mythology with an unflinching examination of the impacts of transphobia.

• Summer of Stolen Secrets

  Sternberg, Julie,

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  Catarina has never met her strict Jewish grandmother. But now, with an opportunity to spend three weeks in Baton Rouge, Cat packs her bags and leaves New York City to get to know the woman who has always been a mystery. Down South, nobody talks…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Sorry for Your Loss

  Levy, Joanne,

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  Evie's family runs a Jewish funeral home and she enjoys helping out. She doesn't normally interact with the grieving family, but one day she befriends Oren, a boy overwhelmed by grief after an awful accident. Oren hasn't spoken a word since, but…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Louder Than Words

  Kacer, Kathy, 1954-

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  Twelve-year-old Dina, her mother, and two sisters must contend with the invasion of the Nazis of their small Ukrainian town during World War II. With the help of a new housekeeper, Nina, they struggle to stay safe from imminent danger to the Jewish…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Black Bird, Blue Road

  Pasternack, Sofiya,

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  As the daughter of a prominent judge of Khazaria, twelve-year-old Ziva is expected to focus on learning etiquette and decorum in hopes of finding a good husband. But instead, she spends her days with her twin brother, Pesah, as they work to try to…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Golden Dreidel

  Kushner, Ellen,

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  It's that time of year again--Sara's family's big Chanukah party. She gets a shiny gold dreidel from Tante Miriam and a warning to be careful, for it is no ordinary dreidel. Sara soon discovers that the dreidel is an entranced princess in disguise.…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Wren and the Sparrow

  Lewis, J. Patrick,

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  An allegorical tale about Nazi occupied Poland in which a town's residents are forced to turn over their musical instruments. A young student rescues the hurdy-gurdy of her teacher, who has presumably befallen a terrible fate, and later, a young boy…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Max in the House of Spies

  a Tale of World War II

  Gidwitz, Adam,

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  To find his way back home to his family in Germany during WWII, Max Bretzfeld, with a kobold named Berg on one shoulder and a dybbuk named Stein on the other, sets out to do the impossible--become a British spy.

• The Witch of Woodland

  Snyder, Laurel,

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  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.

• Golemcrafters

  Cohen, Emi Watanabe,

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  Faye has a tough time concentrating in school. It's easier to be silent and fade into the woodwork than take on the challenges of kids at school who mock her bi-racial heritage, and her competitive family at home, none of whom are good listeners.…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Button Box

  Hodder, Bridget,

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  With the help of a magic button, Jewish Ava and Muslim Nadeem go back in time to ancient Morocco to help Prince Abdur Rahman escape to Spain and fulfill his destiny as the ruler of a country in which Jews and Muslims work together to make medieval…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Aviva Vs. the Dybbuk

  Lowe, Mari,

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  A long ago "accident." An isolated girl named Aviva. A community that wants to help, but doesn't know how. And a ghostly dybbuk, that no one but Aviva can see, causing mayhem and mischief that everyone blames on her. That is the setting for this…Read moreRead more of this annotation