Eleven-year-old Faiga is the old­est of three chil­dren. Her fam­i­ly lives on a farm in Rus­sia dur­ing the reign of Czar Nicholas the First. Faiga’s younger sis­ter Tzireleh wants to do every­thing Faiga does, and often Faiga resents her being in the way. The fam­i­ly observes the hol­i­days and gives tzdakah, even this year when they are hav­ing a hard time mak­ing ends meet. Faiga strug­gles to find a way to help the fam­i­ly earn enough mon­ey to pay their debts, buy an esrog for Sukkos and have mon­ey for tzdakah. She learns that her lit­tle sis­ter can be a friend and helper. 

This is a sweet sto­ry with the feel of All-of- a‑Kind Fam­i­ly. Each chap­ter is illus­trat­ed with pen and ink sketch­es. The sto­ry demon­strates Jew­ish val­ues of car­ing for fam­i­ly and for oth­ers. There is a short ​“His­tor­i­cal Note” and a descrip­tion of each char­ac­ter at the begin­ning of the book; a glos­sary and a recipe for Babke are includ­ed at the end of the book. Young girls, par­tic­u­lar­ly those who have sis­ters, will feel a spe­cial rela­tion­ship to the char­ac­ters in this sto­ry. Ages 7 – 10.