TeenSpace: Jewish American Heritage Month for Teens

Death lurks around every corner in this unforgettable Jewish historical fantasy about a city, a boy, and the shadows of the past that bind them both together.

On her seventeenth birthday, Hannah Williams begins exhibiting impossible, temporary mutations--gills one day and horns the next--that are the consequences of a desperate bargain her mother made with a sheyd decades ago, and to break the family curse, Hannah and her brother track down their mother's estranged family and discover a legacy that traces back to the Golem of Prague.

When sixteen-year-old Mateo and Chela discover each other and their powers during a political battle between neighborhood factions, they set aside their differences to unravel the mystery behind their sunken homeland and to stop a dangerous political operative who is trying to harness their gifts to unleash terror on the world.

After reliving the same day for months, eighteen-year-old Barrett reluctantly teams up with her nemesis Miles to escape the time loop, and soon finds herself falling for him, but what she does not know is what they will mean to each other if they finally make it to tomorrow.

Miryem is the daughter and granddaughter of moneylenders, but her father is not a very good one. Free to lend and reluctant to collect, he has left his family on the edge of poverty--until Miryem intercedes. Hardening her heart, she sets out to retrieve what is owed, and soon gains a reputation for being able to turn silver into gold. But when an ill-advised boast brings her to the attention of the cold creatures who haunt the wood, nothing will be the same again. For words have power, and the fate of a kingdom will be forever altered by the challenge she is issued. Channeling the heart of the classic fairy tale, Novik deftly interweaves six distinct narrative voices--each learning valuable lessons about sacrifice, power and love--into a rich, multilayered fantasy that readers will want to return to again and again.

In the middle of Budapest, there is a river. Csilla knows the river is magic. During WWII, the river kept her family safe when they needed it most--safe from the Holocaust. But that was before the Communists seized power. Before her parents were murdered by the Soviet police. Before Csilla knew things about her father's legacy that she wishes she could forget. Now Csilla keeps her head down, planning her escape from this country that has never loved her the way she loves it. But her carefully laid plans fall to pieces when her parents are unexpectedly, publicly exonerated. As the protests in other countries spur talk of a larger revolution in Hungary, Csilla must decide if she believes in the promise and magic of her deeply flawed country enough to risk her life to help save it, or if she should let it burn to the ground.

A historical fantasy that follows Eastern European teens Yehuda and Bluma on a journey through the Far Country, the Jewish land of the dead.

Uriel the angel and Little Ash (short for Ashmedai) are the only two supernatural creatures in their shtetl (which is so tiny, it doesn't have a name other than Shtetl). The angel and the demon have been studying together for centuries, but pogroms and the search for a new life have drawn all the young people from their village to America. When one of those young emigrants goes missing, Uriel and Little Ash set off to find her.

In Warsaw, Poland, in 1942, Mira faces impossible decisions after learning that the Warsaw ghetto is to be "liquidated," but a group of young people are planning an uprising against their Nazi captors.

Trying to make sense of the horrors of World War II, Death relates the story of Liesel--a young German girl whose book-stealing and story-telling talents help sustain her family and the Jewish man they are hiding, as well as their neighbors.

It is 1939 in Berlin, Germany, and twelve-year-old Lillian and her Papa are on the run from Nazi soldiers. Because they are Jewish, they are in danger of being arrested and put in prison. Lillian's father is blind and it seems no one is willing to help them, until they meet Otto Weidt. Mr. Weidt runs a factory that makes brushes for the Nazi army, and his secret is that he employs blind Jewish workers. Lillian soon learns that Otto Weidt is determined to keep her, Papa, and all the Jewish workers safe. But will he be able to? Inspired by a true story.

Culinary delights abound, romance lingers in the air, and plans go terribly, wonderfully astray in this gender-bent take on My Fair Lady.

The daughter of Polish Jewish immigrants, Gerta Pohorylle doesn't quite fit in. While she's away at boarding school, however, she becomes a master at reinventing herself. When she returns from school, she gets more involved with left-wing groups as Germany splits into political extremes and after she's arrested for distributing anti-Nazi propaganda, Gerta and her family decide she must leave Germany. In Paris, Gerda meets André Friedman, a Hungarian photographer eager for fame and fortune, who fosters Gerda's interest in photography and how it can be as much of a tool for broadcasting her beliefs as protesting and demonstrations. Together the pair invents Robert Capa, a rich American photographer, and soon they're selling "Capa's" work for high prices and to great acclaim. Soon after, Gerda begins selling her own work under the last name Taro and the pair take on more assignments, jetting off to Spain to cover the growing conflict that quickly becomes the Spanish Civil War. As Gerda pushes closer and closer to the front line, eager to capture the lives and vibrant hopes of those fighting against fascism, she begins to lose track of, and regard for, her own safety.

Zofia, a teenage Holocaust survivor, travels across post-war Europe as she searches for her younger brother and seeks to rebuild her shattered life.

Liberated from Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp in 1945, sixteen-year-old Gerta tries to make a new life for herself, aided by Lev, a fellow survivor, and Michah, who helps Jews reach Palestine.

Sixteen-year-old Willow Zimmerman has something to say. When she's not on the streets advocating for her community, she's volunteering at the local pet shelter. But despite how much she does for the world around her, she's struggling to take care of her sick mother at home. She's got no time for boys (though there's one she really likes), and no means to adopt the amazingly loyal stray Great Dane, Lebowitz, that follows her around. Her job as an adjunct professor of Jewish studies does not provide adequate health insurance--and Willow can see that time is running out. In desperation, she reconnects with her estranged family friend E. Nigma--party promoter, and real estate tycoon. Nigma opens the door to an easier life, offering Willow a new job hosting his glamorous private poker nights with Gotham City's elites that allows Willow to afford her mother's medical treatments and get a taste of the high life she's never had. Then everything changes - Willow and Lebowitz are attacked by the monstrous Killer Croc outside the local synagogue, and wake up being able to understand each other. And Willow has powers she never dreamed of. But when Willow discovers that Nigma and his friends are actually some of Gotham's most corrupt criminals, she must make a choice: remain loyal to the man who kept her family together, or use her new powers to be a voice for her community.

A British plane crashes on the outskirts of a small Jewish town, drawing the attention of Nazi forces. To protect their homes and families, one man gives his life to create a creature of legend -- the golem. Following the orders of the man's grandson, the golem fights for the town and becomes a friend no one expected.

A brilliantly modern take on Jewish culinary traditions for a new generation of readers, from a bright new star in the culinary world.

Thirty-six mini biographies of groundbreaking, outspoken, odds-defying Jewish women explore their fascinating lives, as well as the ways in which they were shaped by their heritage, offering a fascinating window into the ways Jewish women have approached their fields and embraced their identities. The captivating stories of luminaries from the worlds of politics, literature, activism, the arts, business, science, and more show how these women-in many cases-overcame the obstacles of being both Jewish and female to make their unique mark on the world.

"What constructs in your life must you unlearn to support inclusivity and respect for all?" This is a question that artist, actor, and activist Chella Man wrestles with in this powerful and honest essay. A story of coping and resilience, Chella journeys through his experiences as a deaf, transgender, genderqueer, Jewish person of color, and shows us that identity lies on a continuum -- a beautiful, messy, and ever-evolving road of exploration.

62 gifted Jewish girls, young women, and nonbinary teens voice their celebrations and challenges, their anger and their eagerness in essays, poetry, and visual art. This collection of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and art touches on themes of childhood, spirituality, sexuality, race, family, friends, and explores what it means to be a young Jewish person today.

In 1939, Gustav Kleinmann, a Jewish upholsterer in Vienna, was seized by the Nazis. Along with his teenage son Fritz, he was sent to Buchenwald in Germany. There began an unimaginable ordeal that saw the pair beaten, starved, and forced to build the very concentration camp they were held in. When Gustav was set to be transferred to Auschwitz--a certain death sentence--Fritz refused to leave his side. Throughout the horrors they witnessed and the suffering they endured, there was one constant that kept them alive: the love between father and son.

Discover nine ordinary women who took extraordinary measures to save lives during the Holocaust, resisting terror and torture while undercover or in hiding, in concentration camps, in forests, and in exile. With compassion and admiration, author Sarah Silberstein Swartz paints portraits of women who stood up for themselves and others in dangerous times. Overlooked by history, they leapt from fear to action with bravery that deserves recognition.

Commended as a "moving and hopeful story of courage and perseverance," American Shoes is a profound mosaic of memories recounting 15-year-old Rosemarie Lengsfeld Turke's escape from Nazi Germany, leaving her life and family behind to forge ahead alone in America - the country she had left as a small child.