The Rabbi's Girls

By Johanna Hurwitz

Book Overview

A move to a new town, the birth of a sister, and the death of her rabbi father make 1923 a bittersweet year for eleven-year-old Carrie Levin. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0064473708
• ISBN13: 9780064473705
• Release Date: February 2002
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Length: 144 Pages
• Weight: 0.28 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.6" x 0.3" x 5.1"
• Age Range: 8 to 12 years
• Grade Range: Grades 3 to 7

Customer Reviews

Growing up Jewish in the 1920s

Carrie is the middle daughter of a family of five girls, daughters of a rabbi whose work moves them from town to town every few years. In 1923 they settle in Lorain, Ohio, where Carrie hopes they can remain for a long time. The plot follows the events of the next year, which becomes a turning point in all their lives. While aimed at young readers, the book brings up questions of dealing with prejudice and being a minority at school, rebelliousness against the strictures of religious practices, congregational politics between the rabbi and his congregation, and serious, life-changing events of illness and calamity. Although written simply, it kept me as an adult reader involved in the story, and is definitely worth reading before or with a child so that you can talk about some of the harder things in the story.

A superb book especially for kids of Rabbis and the like

Questions of character abound in this book. How does a child come to appreciate doing that which is right? How does a child make sense of the board/rabbi relationship? Why do things happen the way they do? Why do the righteous suffer? This book does not have a Disney-type ending and pre-reading by parents will help children deal with a religious or professional leader who has to move his family from community to community or with the death of a parent.