Feminist Books for Young Readers
I Like Your Chutzpah and Other Yiddish Words You’ll Like written and illustrated by Suzy Ultman (Rise Penguin Workshop, $9.99). This colorful board book affectionately introduces a few favorite Yiddish expressions one might say admiringly to a young or not-so-young loved one.
Many Things at Once by Veera Hiranandani, illustrated by Nadia Alam (Random House Studio, $18.99). Told by her parents she is lucky to be both Indian and American, both Jewish and Hindu, the narrator of this picture book learns stories of “everything that came before”—her father’s family, whose lives were changed by the partition of Pakistan and India, and her mother’s family that left Poland to escape pogroms. She is many things at once, and has many feelings, too, including sometimes feeling that she is not “enough.”
Mixed-Up Mooncakes written by Christina Matula and Erica Lyons and illustrated by Tracy Subisak (Quill Tree Books, $19.99) Narrator Ruby shops with her Chinese grandmother for persimmons, pomelos and red chrysanthemums for the Mid-Autumn festival, and with her Jewish grandfather for lulav and etrog for Sukkot. She has the idea to bake mooncakes that reflect both holidays, and with friends and family they eat a celebratory meal in the lantern-decorated sukkah under a full moon.
Let It Glow by Marissa Meyer and Joanne Levy (Feiwel & Friends, $19.99). This middle-grade novel is narrated alternately by two twelve-year-old girls who were adopted at birth, one to a Christian family of a single mom and a grandfather, and the other to a biracial interfaith couple who consider the family they are raising Jewish, but have been generally non-celebrating. When they meet—at a senior center holding a holiday pageant— the girls are thrilled to figure out that they are twins.
The Ballerina of Auschwitz: A Memoir by Dr. Edith Eger (Young adult edition of The Choice, Simon & Schuster $18.99). A Hungarian-born Holocaust survivor, Eger, escaped Auschwitz with luck, grit and love, rebuilt her life, and became a psychologist. Growing up, even before the war, Edith, who was a talented dancer and gymnast, had the not-so-unusual mixed and complicated feelings of growing up in a family. “I gratefully offer this book to you now in the hope that you will read my story and feel that you are not alone in this strange work of being human… and think, if she can do it, so can I. I offer you this book so that you can transcend victimhood and chose to dance though life, even in hellish circumstances.”
What Jewish Looks Like by Liz Kleinrock and Caroline Kusin Pritchard, illustrated by Iris Gottlieb (Harper Kids $19.99). Born in Addis Ababa, Naomi Wadler, a transracial adoptee in Alexandria, Virginia, became a gun control activist at age 11 following the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Jazz Jennings, assigned male at birth in Florida in 2000, came out as a girl at age five, with the support of her family, and offered some of the first positive media visibility for transgender kids. These are the youngest of 36 Jews, a panoply of diverse leaders in many fields—including rabbis, cooks, athletes, scientists, choreographers, and singers—with rich intersectional identities, portrayed in this stereotype-defying anthology for middle-grade and older readers.
Abzuglutely! Battling, Bellowing Bella Abzug by Sarah Aronson, illustrated by Andrea D’Aquino (Calkins Creek, $18.99). When she bellowed “All issues are women’s issues!” They knew she was talking about everything from racial and social justice to equal wages, childcare, peace, and protecting the environment. Bold, outspoken trailblazer Bella Abzug (1920–1998) was never a sugar-and-spice girl. From an early age she wanted to make the world better. She collected coins on the subway for Zionist organizations and a future Jewish homeland. At 13, she recited kaddish for her father in the men’s section of the synagogue. After graduating from Columbia Law School she married a husband who agreed to support her ambitions, to type for her and to help raise their children. In the 1950s she was one of the few attorneys who stood up for celebrities wrongly accused by Senator Joe McCarthy of being un-American. When she decided to make change from the inside and ran for Congress at age 50, her motto was: “This woman’s place is in the House…. the House of Representatives.”
I’m a Mess: A Guide to a Messy Life by Einat Tsarfati, translated from the Hebrew by Annette Appel (Maverick, $14.99). “Some say that messy people’s bedrooms are where the legends about monsters under the bed were born.” This graphic self-acceptance book, full of truths, humor, and lovely detailed images of disorder, is listed as a young adult book, but it’s suitable for adults too.
