The Length of a String

The Length of a String weaves together two parallel stories across time: Imani, a Black Jewish girl in present-day Baltimore who wants to find her birth parents as a bat mitzvah gift, and her great-grandmother Anna, a twelve-year-old Jewish girl who fled Nazi-occupied Luxembourg alone in 1941 to start a new life in Brooklyn. When Imani discovers Anna's journal among her late great-grandmother's belongings, the two stories — and the two girls' shared longing for belonging and family — begin to illuminate each other in ways neither could have imagined. This is an exceptional book for students because it explores adoption, identity, the Holocaust, and Black and Jewish experiences with remarkable tenderness and dual-narrative structure, making it perfect for discussions of family, heritage, and what it means to belong.

Publishing Details

Author : Elissa Brent Weissman

Author Nationality : United States

Physical Details

Type of Book: Chapter

Cover: Softcover

Pages: 384

Size: 7.9 x 5.1 inches

Year Published: 2020

Instructional Details

Reading Grade Level: 5th

Genre: Fiction

Sub-Genre: Historical Fiction

Theme: Family, Identity, War, Social Issues