The Book of Elsie (Orca Currents)

Written by Joanne Levy

Orca Book Publishers

978-1-4598-3424-8

160 pp.

Ages 9-12

RL 2.8

August 2022

With the upcoming Jewish holiday of Purim–that commemorates the salvation of the Jewish people against the evil Haman in 5th c. BCE  Persia, as told in the Book of Esther–Elsie Rose-Miller is buzzing with excitement. For her synagogue's Purim party, she's planning on going as the fierce Queen Esther. Abba, her father, is a theatre costume designer and he's helping with her dress. But when her other dad who is on the temple's board learns that the party will have to be cancelled because of finances, Elsie jumps into action, emulating the strong Queen Esther, determined to save the party and the synagogue.

Rallying Rabbi Alisha and members of their Sunday school, Elsie suggests selling tickets to the Purim party and extending sales beyond their temple. It would seem that everyone is on board and sales are going well, especially with some hamantaschen cookies (recipe appends the book!) to accompany the tickets. But community outreach becomes a little tricky, particularly when approaching strangers, and Elsie and her best friend Grace must contend with antisemitism and racism respectively. Worse yet, when a hate crime is perpetrated against the synagogue, a cancelled Purim party may be the least of their worries.

Joanne Levy has written several middle grade novels where she enlightens young readers about Jewish traditions and the community (e.g., Sorry For Your Loss, The Sun Will Come Out) but this may be the first in which she tackles antisemitism and hate crimes against the Jewish community. That's a heavy topic but Joanne Levy embeds it in a story about courage and communities rather than focusing on the violence or the brutality of offensive remarks. Both Elsie, a Jewish child, and Grace, a person of colour, are exposed to the hate but their histories with that hate are different and, as such, their immediate responses may be different. They both recognize the ignorance involved; however, as part of communities of caring individuals, they see beyond the fear and sadness–"Hate has never solved any problems" (pg. 130)–and work to make things better. 

The story line is strong, encompassing social justice and Jewish traditions, tolerance and inclusivity. But the writing is persuasive, especially as Joanne Levy has written it as a hi-lo (high interest-low reading level) book, thereby reaching a wider audience with her story. As part of the Orca Currents series, The Book of Elsie may be geared to middle graders who are reading below grade level but it's actually opened up the opportunity for younger readers, middle graders and even teens who are striving to read to get a compelling story with a contemporary theme. In a time when hatred is voiced openly on social media and threatens many communities, The Book of Elsie reminds us that there is goodness out there and, with a little courage and determination, it can overcome everything.

Sorry For Your Loss

Written by Joanne Levy

Orca Book Publishers

978-1-4598-2707-3

250 pp.

Ages 8-13

October 2021 

Yes, Sorry For Your Loss is about death and grief. But it's also about respect and honour, life and support, and friendship and family. It's about being there for people, both the living and the dead.

"...being there for people in their time of need is an honor." (pg. 32)

During the summer between her Grade 7 and Grade 8 school years, 12-year-old Evie Walman is working part-time at her family's funeral home, Walman Memorial Chapel. She replenishes supplies like toilet paper and paper towels, ensures visitors have a ready supply of tissues, and does general tidying and vacuuming. She doesn't mind. She wants to be a funeral director like her dad and intends to learn all she can from him and her mother whose counselling background makes her a full partner in the family business. Evie has learned much about the Jewish funeral traditions and how to be respectful but sometimes her chattiness gets the better of her. However, that talkativeness may be just what is needed when she meets Oren Katzman.

After a terrible car accident which killed his parents and left him with bruises and in stitches, as well as an arm cast, Oren no longer speaks. Evie meets Oren while his uncle, Jared Silver, makes arrangements at Walman's, but, though she tries to help, she ends up feeling like she says all the wrong things. She does put her craft skills to work creating a paper quilling project for Oren to represent him and his parents but it's not until a chance meeting at the cemetery has Oren spending days at the Walman's house with Evie while his uncle is at work that the two really learn about each other. They're not going to become friends–Evie is determined not to have friends–but they form a seemingly tenuous bond based on grief, compassion, and their common need for support.

Though I know author Joanne Levy is no longer of middle-grade age, she easily gets into the head of any twelve-year-old who wants to fit in and be liked, and who experiences loss and doesn't know how to ask for help. At first glance, the silent Oren and talkative Evie might seem like complete opposites with Oren having lost his parents and Evie's family still intact. But the two kids are more complementary of each other, giving what the other needs, even if they don't know it. Their relationship is crafted on small things like watching TV, eating ice cream and paper quilling, but founded in loss and hurt that both are experiencing. Through the exploration of the Jewish traditions, from the tahara to the shiva, Oren and Evie search for understanding with the help of the other, and create something new for themselves and those around them, easing the grief a little bit at a time.

The Sun Will Come Out

Written by Joanne Levy

Orca Book Publishers

978-1-4598-2587-1

281 pp.

Ages 9-12

April 2021

If the title of Joanne Levy's newest middle grade novel has you singing the song "Tomorrow" from the musical Annie, then you know what 11-year-old Bea Gellman is wishing for when she has to attend her first summer sleepover camp without her best friend Frankie. All Bea's plans for a fabulous summer at Camp Shalom go out the window when Frankie is accepted to attend an expensive horse camp. Bea knows it won't be the same, even if her crush, Frankie's 14-year-old brother Jeremy, will be there as a counselor-in-training. But all Bea's dad can tell her is to look for the silver lining. 

Very quickly Bea makes a friend of Regan, a girl from Ireland, whose grandparents live locally and wish her to meet some Jewish friends. But also in Cabin 17 are mean girls Carly and Samantha who make Bea the butt of their jokes after she breaks out in hives. And with every new embarrassment, whether it's mistaking the mess tent for the arts and crafts area, seeing Jeremy, or being pushed into him for a kiss, Bea is reduced to hives that send her to the infirmary. There she meets Harry, the thirteen-year-old son of the camp directors, who helps out rather than participating in camp activities because of the meanness of some campers about his appearance. Because Harry has progeria, a rare genetic disorder that is characterized by a number of unusual physical traits including small stature, a large head and no hair, he is happiest helping out in the infirmary and staying behind the scenes.

 

Since Harry is delighted to have some company his own age and Bea appreciates being able to avoid her cabin, especially after learning that Regan and Jeremy were seen kissing after a rehearsal for the camp musical of Annie, the two young people become fast friends, bonding over video games and movies including that of the very musical set to be performed. But while they share a need to cocoon in the comfort of their new friendship, they realize that they're both running away from things that scare them. Harry recognizes that courage may require doing something that is frightening, but...

...even if something doesn't turn out the way you hope, that's not failing. Not trying at all because you're scared is failing. (pg. 235)

At Camp Shalom, there are days of rain and sun, friendships and bullies, and times of angst and glory, and Joanne Levy takes us there for every moment. Of course it has everything that kids experience through the school year, when they are faced with new challenges and people, learning to get by and get along and rise above. There's still much laughter and tears, camaraderie and struggles, but with Camp Shalom as the setting for Bea's newest chapter, Joanne Levy introduces a distinct world of Shabbat services, hamotsi, and ometz lev. But whether they can speak Hebrew or are looking forward to their bat mitzvahs or just figuring out friendships, Joanne Levy has created characters as real as those who may be currently struggling with virtual schools and missing their friends and looking for more.

 

The sun will come out tomorrow, or perhaps the day after, but Joanne Levy helps us see that, with a little humour, a dab of courage and the recognition of a silver lining to most things, almost anything can be endured and even transformative. Most of all, there will be notable moments in our lives when new people come into them, perhaps for only a short time, to offer the kind of friendships that teach us more about ourselves.

Triple book launch: Burlington and Toronto, ON

Three new books are launching at two different events!  

That's multiple opportunities to purchase new books and 

get them signed while celebrating new volumes of youngCanLit.

•••••••••••••

Join authors

Joanne Levy

Angela Misri

Bev Katz Rosenbaum

for the launch their newest novels for young readers.

Double Trouble

 Written by Joanne Levy

Orca Book Publishers

978-1-4598-2133-0
132 pp.
Ages 9-12
August 2019

Reviewed here 

Victoria Adelman is lonely. Her best friend has moved away, leaving her to spend the summer alone. One day, on her way home from a bat mitzvah, she meets Jazzy, her next-door neighbors’ granddaughter. Tori hopes her friendless status is about to change.

Later, in her garden, she meets Jazzy again, but Jazzy doesn’t recognize the filthy, smelly girl as the one she met earlier. In a moment of insecurity, Tori tells Jazzy that the girl she met before was her twin sister, Vicky. Tori is sure she can fake being that girl in the dress—it’s only for two weeks.

But then Jazzy announces she’s staying with her grandparents for the school year. Tori needs to figure out what to do: come clean and lose her new friend, or live her life as a fake. 

(From Orca Book Publishers at 

https://www.orcabook.com/Double-Trouble-P4331.aspx)

Pickles vs. the Zombies

Written by Angela Misri

DCB

978-1770865587

192 pp.

Ages 9-12

September 2019

The comfortable life of Pickles, the calico housecat, is turned upside down when humans succumb to a zombie apocalypse. She doesn’t know where her “pet” – human child Connor – has gone, only that there are zombies everywhere.

Determined to find Connor, Pickles sets off with her cat friends and a streetwise raccoon, exploring a world she has only seen through a window. Fending off human zombies, street cats from the wrong side of the track, and a fearsome gang of chipmunks, Pickles and her crew search for remnants of human society. 

(From DCB at 

https://www.dcbyoungreaders.com/pickles-vs-the-zombies)

Who is Tanksy? 

Written by Bev Katz Rosenbaum

Orca Book Publishers

978-1-4598-2085-2

128 pp.

Ages 9-12

August 2019

Fourteen-year-old Tanya Kofsky is invisible. She hates that no one listens to her, at home or at her new school. So as student elections get underway, Tanya starts secretly painting controversial images on the walls of the school. Soon everyone is talking about this amazing artist with a lot to say.

The election results turn out to be a catalyst for more rebellion. And not just from students. Teachers, tired of the principal's authoritarian leadership, start promoting self-expression. Even the lunch ladies join in, ignoring the strictly controlled menu and serving more nutritious and culturally diverse fare.

But can this revolution effect real change? Or will speaking up lead to complete disaster? 

(From Orca Book Publishers at

 https://www.orcabook.com/Who-is-Tanksy-P4326.aspx)

on 

Saturday, September 7, 2019

2-4 p.m.

A Different Drummer Books

513 Locust St.

Burlington, ON

&

Sunday, September 8, 2019

2-4 p.m.

Indigo Yonge & Eglinton 

2300 Yonge St.

Toronto, ON
 

Take in one or both events for a chance to pick up some great reads for middle-graders and to chat with Canadian authors of books for young readers.

 

Double Trouble (Orca Currents)

Written by Joanne Levy

Orca Book Publishers

978-1-4598-2133-0

132 pp.

Ages 9-12

August 2019 

While many of us display different personalities depending on the circumstances–reserved, outgoing, chatterbox, leader, etc.–Victoria Adelman takes it to a whole different level when she meets Jazzy, the granddaughter of her neighbours and a potential new best friend. She actually becomes her own twin.

With her best friend Anna having moved away, Victoria fills her time cultivating her organic garden, feeding her family–her Dad and grandmother Bubby–and their neighbours and tending to her compost. But when she meets the Patels' granddaughter Jasvitha (Jazzy) shortly upon returning home from synagogue, Jazzy gets the impression that Victoria likes fashion and dressing up. Later when she spots Victoria wearing her grubby gardening clothes and working with her worm bin, Jazzy apparently does not recognize her and keeps asking for Vicky. Victoria, desperate for a friend, pretends to be Tori, Vicky's twin sister, and launches the charade of switching between the garden-loving Tori and the fashionista Vicky, depending on when she sees Jazzy.

But you know things cannot go smoothly when you attempt to deceive and must alter your personality and dress for one person and keep all the others in the dark.

I suddenly felt guilty. Because not only had I made up a sister, but now I was trash-talking her. To the girl I'd lied to. (pg. 68-69)

From a trip to the Royal Botanical Gardens with Mr. and Mrs. Patel and Jazzy, and a shopping trip with Bubby and Jazzy, Victoria is torn between being herself and the person she thinks will win her a new friend in Jazzy.  And then there's the sleepover which Jazzy expects to have with Tori and Vicky. Will it all blow up for Victoria or will she get the friend she is desperate to have?

While Joanne Levy has brought us stories with extraordinary circumstances (see Small Medium at Large, 2012), she does equally well with middle-grade stories that are typical of most young people. Whether it's friendships or family, bat mitzvahs or first crushes (Crushing It, 2017 and Yael and the Party of the Year, 2018, writing as Tamsin Lane), Joanne Levy brings the humour to everyday ups and downs in a middle-grader's life. Moreover, she gets that eagerness to be accepted by your peers, when you'd try just about anything to be liked. The farce that becomes Victoria's life is so representational that I could imagine a young reader wondering if they could pull off faking being twins too. (My advice based on Victoria's experience: Don't.)

Readers will enjoy the ridiculousness of Victoria's deception, which is never spiteful nor mean-spirited, and the farcical scenes of her attempting to pretend to be both Vicky and Tori in this short, hi-lo novel. Still, fortunately, they'll be left with the honest message that self-acceptance will always triumph over pretending to be someone you're not, though you might get a few laughs, plus some heartache, along the way if you do.

Crushing It

by Joanne Levy

Aladdin

978-1-4814-6473-4

240 pp.

Ages 9-13

January 2017
Reviewed from advance reading copy

In a middle-grade twist on the classic tale of Cyrano de Bergerac’s clandestine wooing of the fair Roxanne for the tongue-tied Christian, Joanne Levy, author of the very funny Small Medium at Large (Bloomsbury, 2012), again confirms that first loves aren’t always those of the innocent simplicity suggested.

My stomach had started doing flip-flops because he was...different.  I couldn't figure out exactly what it was, but something inside me told me things were weird.  Not that he was acting differently; just he made me nervous.  Like I wanted to be around him and not be around him at the same time. (pg. 8-9)

Twelve-year-old Kat and her next door neighbour and friend Tyler have a lot in common, like playing Zombie Slashers, watching anime movies, reading fantasy books, and volunteering at a local animal shelter.  But Tyler, who’d previously attended private school, is now on everyone’s radar in Grade 7, including that of Kat’s best friend and cousin Olivia.  Not seeing herself as anything but a warthog, because of her braces, glasses and two-left feet, compared to the pretty and graceful gazelle that is Olivia, Kat agrees to help her cousin get Tyler’s attention and an invite to the school’s first dance.  So begins Project Ty-Livia which involves Kat providing Olivia with cheat sheets about Tyler, pretending to be Olivia playing online video games, and prompting her cousin with the right answers to Tyler’s questions. Tyler may start to see Olivia differently but it’s a farce with Kat attempting to project her nerdy self on her popularity-driven cousin while starting to realize that she too is crushing on Tyler.

Of course Crushing It is all about the angst of that first crush. By having two very different girls crushing on the same boy, Joanne Levy demonstrates, with her trademark humour, that infatuations, whether overt or unspoken, can be overwhelming and embarassing but more so when you don’t remain true to yourself.  Thankfully, unlike Cyrano, Kat and Olivia and Tyler all find happy endings, though not those they first perceived as appropriate or attempted to manipulate.

*************************

(A version of this review was originally written for and published in Quill & Quire, as noted in the citation below.)

Kubiw, H. (2017, March). [Review of the book Crushing It, by Joanne Levy]. Quill & Quire, 83 (2): 23.

Crushing It: Book launch (Hamilton, ON)

The very funny author

 Joanne Levy

who delighted readers with her 

Forest of Reading-nominated 

Small Medium at Large

by Joanne Levy

Bloomsbury Children's Books

978-1-59990-836-6

193 pp.

Ages 9-13

2012

Reviewed here

is back with another funny middle grade read

Crushing It

by Joanne Levy

Aladdin

978-1-4814-6473-4

240 pp.

Ages 9-13

January 2017

which she will launch 

on

Saturday, January 28, 2017

2-4 p.m.

at

Hamilton Public Library, Westdale Branch

955 King St. W.

Hamilton, ON

Joanne Levy promises a reading, a Q & A, swag, light refreshments and, of course, books for purchase and signing.

Although I can't share my review of Crushing It yet–read it, loved it, giggled repeatedly–I can reveal that it's a middle grade story of first crushes gone sideways, when twelve-year-old Kat ends up helping her cousin Olivia snare the boy next door, Tyler, who is so not into popularity-craving Olivia and more into Zombie-slashing gamer Kat.  If things can go wrong, they do, but with much hilarity, courtesy of Joanne Levy's funny (ha!ha!, not strange) writing.

The book is out today, though, so you can always purchase it now, read it and then bring it to the launch for an author's signature and some swag. Whatever way you do it, get the book, enjoy the story.

Small Medium at Large

Written by Joanne Levy

Bloomsbury Children's Books

978-1-59990-836-6

193 pp.

Ages 9-13

2012

Lilah is the Small Medium at Large.  She is only 12 (hence, the small) and her newly acquired psychic ability (making her a medium) is released (i.e., at large) after she is struck by lightning while clutching a metal tent pole at her mother's outdoor wedding.  Luckily, as the great cover indicates, Lilah is an endearing child with a colourful supporting cast to help her manage:  her kind but awkward Dad, just getting back into dating; her loving mother and new step-dad Stan, now away on their month long honeymoon; her best friend, Alex, who finds the value in Lilah's new gift; and her dead grandmother, Bubby Dora, who tells it like it is with wisdom and love, advising Lilah she can't "be everything to everybody."

Getting this psychic ability is a shock in itself but having dead people talking to her wherever she goes could become problematic.  Luckily, most of the spirits she "meets" are good-hearted souls who want to help: her Bubby Dora wants to help Lilah's dad find someone nice so he wouldn't be so lonely; Serena, a former bandmate of Lilah's music teacher, wants him to start up their old band; Miss Marion, the lunch lady, who is able to steer Lilah away from lousy meatloaf and such in the school cafeteria; and Mr. Finkel, the father of the boy on whom Lilah is crushing, just wants to connect with his son.

But, sharing her gift with others is especially awkward, even though Alex is sure that Lilah could make loads of money selling her services.  Luckily, Lilah is more apt to use her gift to help others, including those whose nasty behaviour could have earned them her disdain and disregard.

Small Medium at Large has all the hallmarks of a great middle-grade read.  The plot focus is simple i.e., Lilah's new-found psychic ability.  The characters are mostly of the kind variety with only a couple of nasty ones added for flavour and even they can be redeemed.  And the stories resolve themselves amicably when characters connect.  Even the book trailer from Joanne Levy demonstrates the light-heartedness of the book.  Joanne Levy shares, without preaching, that supporting one's family and friends can bring good karma even if you have to live through the awkwardness of puberty and first crushes.