Eight-year-old Mark has two wishes: To become a shofar blower—just like his High Holiday hero—and to make that photograph of his great-great-grandfather Avram disappear from the hallway in his new home. When the family gathers for Rosh Hashanah, though, Mark discovers that his own desire to blow the shofar is actually linked to a hope that the unsmiling man in the photograph once had. Avram’s Gift is a charming portrait of a family and how their lives—past and present—mingle to make wishes come true.
A delicious honey cake recipe is included in the Kindle edition and the paperback edition!
Here's the author's story behind the story: It all started with a smile. Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) had arrived and the author's great-uncle Morris had come over for lunch to celebrate. In addition to talking and eating, she hoped that this would also be a day for reminiscing, for she'd always wanted to know about the man in the portrait that had been hanging in the hallway for years.
"Who was that man and what was he like?" the author asked as her great-uncle brought the large portrait closer.
With his glasses now up on his forehead, he was face-to-face with a man he hadn't seen in 88 years-his own beloved grandfather Avram, whom he'd left at the train station in Russia so many years ago. That photograph, which the author had always found a bit mysterious, was making her Uncle Morris beam. For an instant, she could swear that Avram smiled back. And in that moment, a story was born.
ARTICLE: "New children's book has Toronto connection"
