Alte Zachen / Old Things
Cicada Books · Hardcover · September 6, 2022
SHORTLISTED FOR THE YOTO CARNEGIES MEDAL FOR ILLUSTRATION 2023 A beautifully illustrated and presented intergenerational graphic novel that follows eleven-year-old Benji and his elderly grandmother, Bubbe Rosa, as they traverse Brooklyn and Manhattan, gathering the ingredients for a Friday night dinner.
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- Who it’s for
- A compact, collectible read with clear category pull and a quietly durable feel.
- Genres
- YA Graphic Novels, Jewish YA, Multigenerational YA Stories
- Published
- Cicada Books, September 6, 2022
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Start with this bookAbout this book
SHORTLISTED FOR THE YOTO CARNEGIES MEDAL FOR ILLUSTRATION 2023 A beautifully illustrated and presented intergenerational graphic novel that follows eleven-year-old Benji and his elderly grandmother, Bubbe Rosa, as they traverse Brooklyn and Manhattan, gathering the ingredients for a Friday night dinner. Bubbe’s relationship with the city is complex—nothing is quite as she remembered it, and she feels alienated and angry at the world around her.
Continue reading
Benji, on the other hand, looks at the world, and his grandmother, with clear-eyed acceptance. As they wander the city, we catch glimpses of Bubbe’s childhood in Germany, her young adulthood in 1950s Brooklyn, and her relationships; first with a baker called Gershon, and later with successful Joe, Benji’s grandfather. Gradually we piece together snippets of Bubbe’s life, gaining an insight to some of the things that have formed her cantankerous personality. The journey culminates on the Lower East Side in a moving reunion between Rosa and Gershon, her first love. As the sun sets, Benji and his Bubbe walk home over the Williamsburg Bridge to make dinner. This is a powerful, affecting, and deceptively simple story of Jewish identity, of generational divides, of the surmountability of difference, and of a restless city and its inhabitants.
Quietly Collectible
A compact, collectible read with clear category pull and a quietly durable feel.
Come here for
- graphic-novel storytelling
- Jewish family threads
Expect
- genre-mixed shelving appeal
- a sustained, illustrated narrative
Where it sits
| YA Graphic Novels | 38% |
|---|---|
| Multigenerational YA Stories | 33% |
| Jewish YA | 30% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- YA Graphic Novels
- Multigenerational YA Stories
- Jewish YA
- Authors
- Ziggy Hanaor, Benjamin Phillips
- Publisher
- Cicada Books
- Published
- September 6, 2022
- Format
- Hardcover
- Reading lane
- YA Graphic Novels