Customer Reviews

L'Chaim!: To Jewish Life in America: Celebrating from 1654 Until Today

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Finally, there is a work for young people on the 350th anniversary of Jewish settlement in America that meets the high standards of adult books created for the 350th. Noted young adult book author Susan Goldman Rubin has written the junior version of American Judaism by Jonathan Sarna--the young person's book of the year for the 350th. L'Chaim achieves its purpose by focusing on individuals and families who have helped shape the American Jewish experience. Rubin is an award-winning writer who has written many biographies of creative people, so she is ideal to tell this story. The book is accompanied by extraordinary photographs of objects and images from the collection of the unsurpassed Jewish Museum in New York City.
What a wonderful book to read, to use as a reference, and to pass down to younger children and grandchildren in the future!

Produced in association with The Jewish Museum, this book is an
overview of Jewish life in America from the earliest Colonial days to the present. Eighteen chapters follow Jewish-American history chronologically, with a few chapters zeroing in on topics of particular interest such as the life of Rebecca Gratz or Irving Berlin's army experiences. The large, square volume with its many color photographs has the feel of a coffee-table book, and its short tid-bits of information suit it to browsing more than to research purposes.

Photographs and art objects from The Jewish Museum are large, well-reproduced, and clearly captioned, and the pages are made attractive with color accents (there is hardly a white page in the whole book!).

This book was named a 2004 Notable Children's Book of Jewish Content by the Association of Jewish Libraries.

An audio interview with the author is available on The Book of Life podcast's July episode at www.jewishbooks.blogspot.com.