Books like The Prince of Steel Pier

When her parents decide to renovate a run-down motel in upstate New York, eleven-year-old Miriam must begin her life anew in a community unfamiliar with Jewish people.

She is befriended by her Catholic neighbor, Kate, and together they scheme to save two businesses in financial trouble. I loved the way this book built interfaith bonds between people, respecting everyone’s traditions. Readers will enjoy watching Miriam as she learns new strengths and interacts with family. 

Half Jewish and half Chinese, Lauren doubts herself after an insensitive music teacher says she belongs in the chorus of the school musical because she doesn’t look American enough for the leading role.

Tara, Lauren’s best friend, is cast as the lead instead. Lauren isn’t sure she can hide her own disappointment to support her friend. With the help of her two grandmothers who share wisdom from both of their traditions, Lauren learns to claim her identity and believe in her own considerable talents.

As a reader, I personally identified with Lauren’s love of singing and was rooting for her every step of the way. 

This touching novel is written in alternating voices of two pre-teens who become friends on a city bus in Washington, DC.

Gilah is preparing for her Bat Mitzvah and Guillermo is a Salvadoran-American who is adjusting to a new city. Gilah’s narrative is told in prose chapters with a thoughtful internal monologue sharing her struggles to interpret social cues as a neurodiverse adolescent.

Guillermo narrates in verse chapters beautifully capturing his own observations and challenges. This is a story of friendship, family, and learning to embrace yourself.  

Imani is thirteen and approaching her Bat Mitzvah. She is also an African-American adopted by a white Jewish family.

She has many questions about her birthparents and her own place in the world. When she has the opportunity to read the diary of her adopted mother’s grandmother who fled Europe as a Jewish refugee during World War II, Imani learns why sometimes mothers make impossible choices to save their children’s lives.

This novel is a riveting mix of history and coming of age. 

I loved this book for the way it weaves Jewish folklore and mythology into a haunting recreation of the genre of Jewish folk horror. I was captivated by Yehuda Leib and Bluma, who chase and are chased by Death and Demons on a journey through the faraway land of the dead.

Savit’s writing gets into you, capturing the eeriness of the land of the Dead like a Jewish Lewis Carrol or Studio Ghibli. It made me proud and excited to be reading at a time of tremendous creativity for Jewish literary heritage.

I love this book for its humor, voice, and vivid and lovable characters. Goldie reminds me of the grandma I never had—determined, dry-witted, and unafraid to get involved in her granddaughter Maxie’s love life. Set in an assisted living facility full of quirky characters, this element of aging—the loneliness and the desperation—is both hilarious and universally tragic.

Maxie’s story, meanwhile, follows a delightful rom-com arc that mirrors and breaks the repetition of her grandmother’s adventure in love as she meets T-Jam, her grandmother’s eccentric driver. This book charmed me—brilliantly balancing comedy with themes of heritage, love, and legacy, l’dor v’dor. 

I loved this book, which made me both cry and laugh. It is a touching exploration of grief, friendship, and coming-of-age. The story follows Noah and his best friend, Dash, two b’nai mitzvah boys obsessed with comedy, especially the classic Three Stooges.

When Dash’s father dies by suicide—presented sensitively and honestly—their friendship faces strain as Dash withdraws and Noah struggles to understand his friend’s pain. Perl’s writing captures the desperate need for friendship characteristic of adolescence.

The book thoughtfully addresses mental illness and death—but also loyalty and friendship, making it relatable to adult and middle-grade readers. Humor becomes both a way of pushing away and engaging, highlighting the essential role of laughter in growth and healing. 

I loved this book for its unique blend of history and adventure. The novel transports readers to three friends in two eras, joined by a mystical radio—connecting the two generations: one before WWII and one many years later. The novel masterfully layers the past and present, weaving together humor and tragedy, secrets that refuse to stay buried.

The atmosphere is haunting and believable, capturing the weight of how few steps it could take to turn our world into a familiar nightmare. Westallen is a beautifully written, thought-provoking story that explores time travel, friendship, courage, and forgiveness. 

While perhaps a little late to be truly classed as ‘early-modern’, Andrew Popp’s Entrepreneurial Families is one of the books that sparked my own interest in a social approach to business history. Revitalising the exploration of the role of families in business after Davidoff and Hall’s seminal 1987 study Family Fortunes, this micro-study primarily employs correspondence as its source. This not only allows Popp to explore the validity of this approach, but it also helps him to realise his aim to ‘re-humanise the economic’. The focus on family makes this work appealing not only to those interested in business history, but to those interested in debates about the public/private spheres, gender history, and kinship.

This novel, set in sixteenth-century Venice, reminds us that the Italian Renaissance was a great time to be a devotee of the pictorial arts. And it does so without getting caught up in the scandals surrounding the Borgias, who are almost as overdone as the Tudors. Luca Vianello is the heir to Venice’s premier gondola maker, until tragedy sends him off on a journey through poverty and hard work that ends when he becomes the personal boatman of the painter Trevisan. Morelli, who trained as an art historian, is intimately acquainted with the former Italian city-states, and like the other novels on my list, hers immerses you in Renaissance everyday life at a very personal level.