We’re so pleased to share that Rachel DeWoskin‘s Someday We Will Fly has won the National Jewish Book Award for Young Adult Literature.
The National Jewish Book Award is the longest-running and most prestigious of its kind—past notable winners include Philip Roth, Elie Wiesel, Jonathan Safran Foer, Alice Hoffman, and many others, and we’re thrilled that Rachel DeWoskin is joining their esteemed ranks.
In the Jewish Book Council’s write-up of the novel, they say:
In Rachel DeWoskin’s deep and harrowing novel, her characters lives are more than just metaphors for the precariousness of Jewish existence. This is an exploration of Jewish refugees who found shelter, of a kind, in Shanghai during the War. The sense of life as a chaotic performance, its actors robbed of autonomy, may seem an obvious structure to impose on this time in history. Yet DeWoskin’s philosophically searching narrative completely avoids simple parallels or comforting redemption. Someday We Will Fly is a brilliantly realized human drama, its threatened protagonists responding to their imprisoned lives with both desperate contortions and unbelievable grace.
You can read the full write-up here and the full list of winners here. The awards ceremony will be held in March.
Someday We Will Fly was also included on ALA Midwinter’s 2020 Notable Children’s Books Discussion List.