Length of a String, The

A powerful contemporary story blends with historical fiction about World War II in this story about a young Black girl named Imani who grows up with a white, Jewish family. When she finds her late great-grandmother’s journal detailing her experience as an immigrant to New York, Imani begins to explore her birth family’s heritage and learns about who she is and where she comes from. Appropriate for elementary and middle-school students, this story of self-discovery broaches complex themes in an accessible and easy-to-read novel, allowing readers to connect with concepts such as immigration and belonging. In the classroom, the novel may be used as a read-aloud to inspire further research and discussions or as part of a cross-curricular study of immigration to Canada, the history surrounding the Holocaust or Jewish experiences during the Second World War.