THE LIFE AND OPINIONS OF AMY FINAWITZ

Roaring Brook Press, August 2010

It can’t get any worse for Amy Finawitz. Her best friend, Callie, has abandoned their life in New York City to stay with relatives in Kansas for the year, leaving Amy to cope with eighth grade alone. Thankfully—or not—God sends Amy a replacement friend in the form of Miss Sophia, the little old lady who lives down the hall. Miss Sophia hooks Amy into solving a decades old mystery left in a very old journal. The dynamic duo soon becomes a Terrific Triumvirate when Miss Sophia also asks her fifteen-year-old nephew, Beryl, a Lubavitch Jew, to join their little investigative team.

And if Amy thought her year couldn't get anymore random, she can add the following items to her list: Houdini’s grave, the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, cross-dressing magicians, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, crochet circles, Abraham Lincoln, a raucous rendition of Fiddler on the Roof, and a secret treasure.

To get through it all, Amy's going to need a serious Chanukah miracle.

Read the first chapter here.

Reviews:

"Most special here is shy, stolid Beryl and the way Toffler-Corrie portrays both Beryl’s Orthodox Judaism (he’s deeply devoted) and Amy’s hippie-flaky Judaism (“tofu brisket” and some “challah that [mom] bought from the Italian deli (because it’s crusty)”) with value and sweetness." ~Kirkus Reviews

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