School Library Journal Gr 8 Up-After six long years, Gittel is still haunted by her friend's suicide. Now 17, she knows what happened to Devory and why, but their ultra-Orthodox Jewish community has refused to accept the truth. The incest that led to Devory's death is not acknowledged, because "that doesn't happen in our community." This thoughtful, disturbing, and insightful novel provides an insider's view of an insular society that denies the r...More

Publishers Weekly Pattern-driven digital illustrations pair with concrete verse to express water's cyclical nature: "Thirsty air/ licks it from lakes/ sips it from ponds/ guzzles it from oceans/ and this wet air/ swirls up." In a bone-colored landscape in another part of the world, a child in a hut and wild animals in a barren tree await a gray storm cloud. When a torrent comes, a lullaby-like line assures: "Honey,/ living things ...More

Library Journal Starred Review. Fifteen-year-old Elisabeth ("Sisi"), heroine of this second historical novel from Pataki (The Traitor's Wife), is utterly enchanted by her sister's intended fiance, Franz Joseph, the dashing young Emperor of the Habsburgs. Franz is equally attracted to her, and before long the free-spirited Sisi has married Franz and taken her sister's planned place as Empress, to her sister's relief but her contr...More