Broken Strings

Eighth-grade Shirli attends a theatre school and is so disappointed when she does not get a key role in “Fiddler on the Roof”; rather, she has to play the old mother. While rehearsals are underway 9/11 occurs and Shirli must deal with that trauma coupled by the recent death of her grandmother. As she bonds more with her grandfather she asks about her own family’s history and learns of the horrors of Russian pogroms, the Holocaust, Auschwitz, and anti-Semitism. This engaging Canadian novel, suitable as an independent or literature circle novel, presents historical atrocities and injustices in a humanizing and accessible way, and also deals with family dynamics, the struggles of adolescence, and first love.