Central Kansas Library System

A novel about a mysterious mail-order bride in the wake of World War II, whose sudden decision ripples through time to deeply impact the daughter she never knew.

The bestselling, critically acclaimed debut novel about an ordinary girl with an extraordinary talent for spelling. Annotation. Eliza Naumann, a seemingly unremarkable nine-year-old, expects never to fit into her gifted family: her autodidactic 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...

At once fiercely immediate and complex in their implications, The Shawl and Rosa succeed in imagining the unimaginable: the horror of the Holocaust and the emptiness of its aftermath. They were written in 1977 but were first published in the early 1980s in The New Yorker. Both The Shawl and Rosa won first prize in the O. Henry Prize Stories and were chosen for Best American Short Stories. In The Shawl, a woman named Rosa Lublin watches a concentration...

When fourteen-year-old Liyanne Abboud, her younger brother, and her parents move from St. Louis to a new home between Jerusalem and the Palestinian village where her father was born, they face many changes and must deal with the tensions between Jews and Palestinians.

"Anne Berest's The Postcard is among the most acclaimed and beloved French novels of recent years. Luminous and gripping to the very last page, it is an enthralling investigation into family secrets, a poignant tale of mothers and daughters, and a vivid portrait of twentieth-century Parisian intellectual and artistic life. January, 2003. Together with the usual holiday cards, an anonymous postcard is delivered to the Berest family home. On the front,...

"An endearing romantic comedy from the beloved best-selling author of The Family Man and The View from Penthouse B At thirty-two, Faith Frankel has returned to her claustro-suburban hometown, where she writes institutional thank-you notes for her alma mater. It's a peaceful life, really, and surely with her recent purchase of a sweet bungalow on Turpentine Lane her life is finally on track. Never mind that her fianc�e is off on a crowdfunded cross-country...

Fans of Judy Blume, The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street, and The Penderwicks will love this funny, charismatic story of a Jewish girl striving to forge her own identity in the shadow of her fearless best friend. Winner of the Sydney Taylor Manuscript Award! "Heartwarming…and inspiring…I loved it!" - M. Evan Wolkenstein, author of Turtle Boy, winner of the 2021 Sydney Taylor Book Award "A gentle coming-of-age tale of friendship, family and faith...

Set during World War II in Poland, a novel based on real-life heroes follows Elzbieta Rabinek over the course of the war, her involvement with the Resistance, and her love for a young man imprisoned in the Jewish ghetto whose passion leads him to fight in the Warsaw Uprising. Spring, 1942. Elzbieta Rabinek has no fondness for the Germans who patrol her streets and impose their curfews, but has never given much thought to what goes on behind the walls...

"From the author of Once We Were Brothers comes a saga inspired by true events of a Holocaust survivor's quest to fulfill a promise, return to Poland and find two sisters lost during World War II."-- "Lena Woodward, an elderly woman, enlists the help of both lawyer Catherine Lockhart and private investigator Liam Taggart to appraise the story of her harrowing past in Nazi occupied Poland. At the same time, Lena's son Arthur presents her with a hefty...

"In 1936, the Nazis are little more than loud, brutish bores to fifteen-year old Stephan Neuman, the son of a wealthy and influential Jewish family and budding playwright whose playground extends from Vienna's streets to its intricate underground tunnels. Stephan's best friend and companion is the brilliant Zofie-Helene, a Christian girl whose mother edits a progressive, anti-Nazi newspaper. But the two adolescents' carefree innocence is shattered...