Book cover of The Book Rescuer: How a Mensch from Massachusetts Saved Yiddish Literature for Generations to Come

Book description

Recipient of a Sydney Taylor Book Award for Younger Readers
An ALA Notable Book
A Bank Street Best Book of the Year

"Text and illustration meld beautifully." -The New York Times
"Stunning." -Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Inspired...[a] journalistic, propulsive narrative." -Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"The story comes alive through…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Book Rescuer as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

I’m so glad there is a children’s picture book biography of Aaron Lansky. His own memoir for adults, Outwitting History: The Amazing Adventures of a Man Who Rescued a Million Yiddish Books, is so entertaining and engrossing that I’ve read it twice. While this picture book doesn’t have space for all of Lansky’s funny, touching stories, it does get across the amazing fact that thanks to one young man who refused to believe that a “dying” language should be buried, Yiddish was given new life—and a permanent address at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts. (I recently visited,…

From Mara's list on picture books about languages.

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