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Celebrate a nation of diverse readers with these recommended books, authors, and teaching resources.
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Celebrating Jewish Culture with Books

Celebrate Jewish culture, tradition, language, and beliefs as well as the achievements and contributions of Jewish people with these recommended titles from NEA’s Jewish Affairs Caucus and NEA’s Read Across America.
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Published: May 22, 2025

Find these recommendations and more titles at your local library through World Cat.  

Picture Books and Elementary 

Big Dreams, Small Fish by Paula Cohen  

Chik Chak Shabbat by Mara Rockliff  

Eighteen Flowers for Grandma: A Gift of Chai by Alison Goldberg 

Everybody Says Shalom by Leslie A. Kimmelman  

A Feather, a Pebble, a Shell by Miri Leshem-Pelly 

Here Is the World by Lesléa Newman  

Herschel and the Hanukkah Goblins by Eric Kimmel  

Klezmer! by Kyra Teis 

One Small Spark: A Tikkun Olam Story by Ruth Spiro 

The Passover Guest by Susan Kusel  

The Tower of Life: How Yaffa Eliach Rebuilt Her Town in Stories and Photographs by Amy Midanik-Blum 

Middle Grade 

Across So Many Seas by Ruth Behar  

All Three Stooges by Erica S. Perl 

Letters from Cuba by Ruth Behar  

Noah Green Saves the World by Laura Toffler Corrie 

Not Your All-American Girl by Wendy Wan-Long Shang and Madelyn Rosenberg  

RBG’s Brave & Brilliant Women: 33 Jewish Women to Inspire Everyone by Nadine Epstein 

Two Tribes by Emily B. Cohen  

Welcome Back, Maple Mehta-Cohen by Kate McGovern  

What Jewish Looks Like by Liz Kleinrock  

Where Is Jerusalem? by Ellen Morgan  

Young Adult 

The Ballerina of Auschwitz by Edith Eva Eger 

Going Bicoastal by Dahlia Adler 

It's a Whole Spiel: Love, Latkes, and Other Jewish Stories edited by Katherine Locke and Laura Silverman 

Just a Hat by S. Khubiar 

The Life and Crimes of Hoodie Rosen by Isaac Blum  

They Went Left by Monica Hesse 

Turtle Boy by M. Evan Wolkenstein  

The Way Back by Gavriel Savit 

When the Angels Left the Old Country by Sacha Lamb 

Why We Fly by Kimberly Jones and Gilly Segal 

Celebrate a nation of diverse readers with these recommended books, authors, and teaching resources.

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Recommended Books by Theme from NEA's Read Across America

Spread the joy of reading with these lists from NEA and Colorín Colorado to connect children and their families to diverse books, languages, and cultures.
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