the Jewish
Book Council 2024
The Jewish Book Council announces the winners of this year’s National Jewish Book Awards, based on books published last year in 2023. Winners receive cash prizes from generous donors to the JBC who endowed funds for various categories. These awards were established in 1950 to recognize outstanding works of Jewish literature. They are the oldest awards of their kind. Retired librarian Ellen Cole recommends these special books.
Children’s Picture Books:
Winner: Two New Years
Warm illustrations evoking paper cutting traditions of Jewish and Chinese cultures reveal two celebrations full of joy and light. Readers follow a Chinese Jewish family celebrating two new years: Rosh Hashanah in fall, and Lunar New Year in early spring.
Finalists:
The Inside Name
Stars of the Night: The Courageous Children of the Czech Kindertransport
Middle Grade Literature:
Winner: The Dubious Pranks of Shaindy Goodman
Lonely preteen Shaindy is lured into assisting popular Gayil with pranks targeting students in their all-girls Orthodox Jewish MS. When consequences escalate, Shaindy must decide whether fitting in is worth the cost in this subtly thrilling story of friendship, consequences, and forgiveness.
Finalists:
Two Tribes
The Boy Who Followed His Father into Auschwiztz
The Witch of Woodland
Young Adult Literature:
Winner: The Blood Years
A riveting historical fiction inspired by the author’s grandmother’s experience in Holocaust-era Romania introduces teenagers struggling to survive. Growing up in Czernowitz with a protective grandfather and an unstable mother, Rieke Teitler and her older sister Astra must reinvent their days when war breaks out and their beloved community is invaded by two different armies: Russian and German
Finalists:
Just A Hat
Courage to Dream: Tales of Hope in the Holocaust
