Israel Fiction for Kids
Explore the best Israel fiction for kids! This curated book list features captivating children's stories set in Israel, from David Grossman's Duel to Snow in Jerusalem and Engineer Ari. Discover award-winning juvenile fiction, Hebrew tales, and timeless adventures that bring Israeli culture, history, and holidays to life for young readers.
Book
Sammy Spider's First Israel
by Sylvia A. Rouss
Sammy Spider joins the Shapiro family on a vacation, and he uses his five senses to experience Israel.
Book
Joshua's Dream
by Sheila F. Segal
Joshua's dream of taking part in the transformation of Israel's desert land finally comes true.
Book
Chicken Man
by Michelle Edwards
Each time Chicken Man is moved into a new job on the kibbutz, someone else wants to take that job instead, and the chickens suffer as a consequence.
Book
Come, Let Us be Joyful!
by Fran Manushkin
"It is a fine thing to be joyful. And is anything more joyful than coming home after a long journey? I'm going to tell you a story about a song and a journey home that took two thousand years!" So begins this charming picture book, which brings to life the real history of "Hava Nagila"-a song that is sung at Jewish simchas and baseball games alike!
Book
ืืื ืชื ืืืืืื
by Shira Sheri
On a family outing to an Israeli beach, Jonathan is afraid of the ocean waves until he learns about God.
Book
Snow in Jerusalem
by Deborah Da Costa
Although they live in different quarters of Jerusalem, a Jewish boy and a Muslim boy are surprised to discover that they have been caring for the same stray cat.
Book
Engineer Ari and the Rosh Hashanah Ride
by Deborah Bodin Cohen
Observing Rosh Hashanah--the Jewish New Year--Engineer Ari apologizes for his boastful ways as the drives the very first train from Jaffa to Jerusalem in 1892.
Book
The Two Brothers
ย
After observing a miracle that marks the love and concern that two brothers have for each other, King Solomon decides on the site for his great temple.--
Book
Harvest of Light
by Allison Ofanansky
An Israeli family raises olives and uses some of the oil to light their Hanukkah menorah.
Book
Jodie's Hanukkah Dig
by Anna Levine
Jodie dreams of one day becoming a famous archaeologist and when her father takes her to visit a dig in Modiin, Israel, home of the Maccabees, she is uniquely able to help. Simultaneous.
Book
Jerusalem Sky
by Mark H. Podwal
Poetic text and color illustrations celebrate the city of Jerusalem, its history, and its diverse people.
Book
The Never-ending Greenness
by Neil Waldman
When his family comes to live in Israel after the end of World War II, a young boy begins planting and caring for trees, a practice that spreads across the whole country.
Book
Samir and Yonatan
by Daniella Carmi
Samir, is sent to an Israeli hospital where he makes friends with an Israeli boy, who travels with him to Mars, and finds peace about his brother's death.
Book
Running on Eggs
by Anna Levine
When Karen and Yasmine become friends as well as members of a mixed Arab and Jewish track team in Israel, relatives and friends of both girls disapprove of the relationship.
Book
Duel
by David Grossman
David is a twelve-year-old boy living in Jerusalem in 1966. His best friend just happens to be seventy-year-old Heinrich Rosenthal, who lives at the Beit Hakerem Home for the Aged. Their friendship takes an unexpected turn when Mr. Rosenthal receives a threatening letter from the man he once knew as "the bully of Heidelberg University." The letter accuses Mr. Rosenthal of stealing a priceless painting and challenges him to a duel if it is not returned immediately. But Mr. Rosenthal didn't steal the painting. Who did? Determined to find some answers and prevent the duel, David plays detective and ultimately uncovers the story of two beautiful paintings, one of a woman's eyes and the other of her mouth, given by the artist to the two men who are now willing to kill one another over them. With some brilliant sleuthing and a bit of luck, David manages to pull together the strings of a story that began more than thirty years before, preventing a tragedy by bringing a long-dead memory to back to life.
Book
Daughters of the Ark
by Anna Morgan
Through the eyes of two young women linked together by a gemstone, tells a story about the emigration of Jews from Israel to Ethiopia in 939 B.C., the life of the Ethiopian Jews in the 1980s, and their trek back to Jerusalem in 1984.
Book
The Storyteller's Beads
by Jane Kurtz
Running for their lives to escape the political upheaval in Ethiopia, two young girls, Rahel and Sahay, must overcome their fear and prejudice and turn to each other to survive in the debut novel of the author of Fire on the Mountain.
Book
One More River
by Lynne Reid Banks
Lesley lives in Canada and thinks life is just great, she has got friends, she likes school and they are very comfortably off. But then her father makes a fateful decision, the whole family is going to emigrate to Israel and lead a more fully Jewish life. Lesley is horrified and very resistant. However, once she gets to her new country and a very different life, she begins to find it stimulating and enjoyable. A strange relationship with Palestinian boy Mustafa, who lives on the other side of the Jordan river, is a big part of the new Lesley. A very exciting book, set in the 1960s about life in a pioneering new country.
Book
Broken Bridge
by Lynne Reid Banks
The murder of fourteen-year-old Glen Shelby, soon after his arrival in Israel to visit his father's family, has a dramatic effect on the lives of his relatives, the other members of their kibbutz, and the Arabs responsible for his death. Copyright ยฉ Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.
Book
Return
by Sonia Levitin
Fifteen-year-old Desta belongs to a small, isolated mountain community of Ethiopian Jews. She and her brother and sister leave their aunt and uncle and set out on the long and dangerous trip to freedom -- an airlift from the Sudan to Israel, the Promised Land. They travel barefoot, facing hunger, thirst and bandits. "Vivid and compelling...Levitin's tour de force is sensitively written." BOOKLIST. An ALA 1987 Best Book for Young Adults.
Book
Masada
by Gloria D. Miklowitz
In the year 72 C.E., after a four-year war between Rome and Judea, only one fortress remains to be taken: Masada, high above the Dead Sea in what is now Israel. Two years later, the commander of the famous Roman Tenth Legion, Flavius Silva, marches toward Masada to capture or kill the 960 Jewish zealots who hold it. In this eloquent and powerful novel, we meet 17-year-old Simon ben Eleazar, son of the Jewish leader of Masada. Apprenticed too Masada s only physician, Simon learns to help victims of the enemy s onslaught as he struggles with his love for Deborah, the intended of his best friend, and with the painful decision he must ultimately make.
Book
Tali's Jerusalem Scrapbook
by Sylvia A. Rouss
Tali is disappointed when her relatives from the U.S. cancel their trip to Jerusalem because of the security situation.
Book
The Dog of Knots
by Kathy Walden Kaplan
In1973 Israel at the onset of Yom Kipper War, a nine year old girl struggles about her future, service to the army, but find comfort in friends, relatives, and a very old, stray dog with no name.
Book
Sara's Journey
by David L. Shapiro
Sara, a Jewish 12-year-old in 1919 Russia, has spunk, independence, and a deep commitment to her heritage. Suddenly orphaned under mysterious circumstances, her home and shtetl destroyed, Sara begins a daring journey toward Budapest and her eventual destination, Palestine. On this amazing odyssey, Sara meets fascinating people of all sorts. Set against a backdrop of stormy historical events -- pogroms, the influenza epidemic, the Bolshevik Revolution, and the struggle to create the State of Israel -- this riveting young-adult novel is told with warmth, grace, and subtlety. Through the heart and mind of Sara, young readers will experience a world of connections between generations, genders, cultures, religions, and nationalities. Sara grows into a true follower of her father's wise advice: "Be bold and brave, but not foolhardy."
Book
Soumchi
by Amos Oz
Soumchi is eleven years old, and growing up in British-occupied Jerusalem, just after World War II. His universe is enriched immeasurably when he is given a bicycle, but before he fulfills his dreams of riding into the desert and exploring Africa, he shows his new prize to a friend. Persuaded to swap his bicycle for a new train set. Soumchi's series of misadventures begin as he trades away one possession after another--but as he imagines ever more colorful ways of escaping his predicament he finds something he never expected--his first love. With "Soumchi, Oz brings to life a protagonist in the tradition of such memorable scamps as Huckleberry Finn; Soumchi is fresh, funny and always engaging.
Book
Lydia, Queen of Palestine
by Uri Orlev
Ten-year-old Lydia describes her childhood escapades in pre-World War II Romania, her struggles to understand her parents' divorce amid the chaos of the war, and her life on a kibbutz in Palestine. Based on the life of the Israeli poet Arianna Haran.
Book
The Lady with the Hat
by Uri Orlev
In 1947, seventeen-year-old Yulek, the only member of his immediate family to survive the German concentration camps, joins a group of young Jews preparing to live on a kibbutz in Israel, unaware that his aunt living in London is looking for him.
Book
And Shira Imagined
by Giora Carmi
A young girl visits Israel and envisions the history of the sites she sees.
Book
The Mystery of the Dead Sea Scrolls
by Hagit Allon
"What Daniel really wants is to be a detective, but so far he hasn't been having much luck. That is, not until he is assigned a project on the Dead Sea Scrolls and discovers that there are even bigger mysteries than burglaries and murders. Daniel's investigation takes him to the Shrine of the Book at The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, where he gets his first 'clues' from real experts, and then on to Qumran in the Judean Desert, where an archaeologist guides him through the place where the scrolls were found, home to a strange ancient community."--Page 4 of cover
Book
The Key to My Heart
by Nira Harel
Jonathan joins his dad in retracing his steps after his father misplaces his key chain which holds a very special picture of Jonathan.
Book
One City, Two Brothers
by Chris Smith
To settle an inheritance dispute between two brothers, King Solomon tells a tale of how Jerusalem came to be founded.
Book
Seymour, the Formerly Fearful
by Eve B Feldman
Originally published: New York: Four Winds Press, 1990.