In Store Event with Nancy McCabe and Laurie Schneider

About the Authors

Laurie Schneider grew up in central Wisconsin, not far from where GITTEL is set. A self-avowed kidlit nerd, heron spotter, and library lover, she lives in Norman, Oklahoma, with her partner and two very good cats. When not working at the library (or scoping out the latest coffee shop), she can be found stalking turtles and herons at the neighborhood pond, camera in hand.

Nancy McCabe is the author of a young adult novel, Vaulting through Time, a new adult ghost story, Following Disasters, and several nonfiction books for adults. She lives in northwestern Pennsylvania, where she teaches writing workshops to participants of all ages.

About the Books

Gittel

The town bully, Karl Leckner, threatens to nail her mouth shut. Her best friend says she has more sass than sense. Even her beloved zayde wishes she would hold her tongue and rise above. But thirteen-year-old Gittel Borenstein’ s feet are planted stubbornly on the earth and her tongue is as sharp as Zayde’ s chalef, the razor he uses for butchering chickens. She’ s fed up with being called Geetle Beetle, or Jew girl, or worse. The Borensteins and twelve other Jewish families have left behind the deadly pogroms of Eastern Europe only to find life nearly as harsh in 1911 Mill Creek, Wisconsin. The winters are fierce, the farming is unfamiliar, and not everyone in Mill Creek accepts the Jewish settlers. A star student, Gittel takes refuge in school, where she longs to blend in with her gentile friends and dreams of becoming a famous writer— a far-fetched dream when eighth grade represents the last year of formal schooling available in Mill Creek and Karl Leckner is determined a Jewish girl will never blend in.

Fire Burning Underground

It’ s Anny’s first day of middle school and, after years of being homeschooled, her first day of public school ever. In art, Larissa asks what kind of ESP is her favorite: telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, or telekinesis? Tracy asks how she identifies: gay, straight, bi, asexual, pan, trans, or confused? And thus kicks off a school year for Anny in which she’ ll navigate a path between childhood and adolescence, imagination and identity. In a year of turmoil and transition, with a new awareness of loss after the death of a friend, Anny struggles to find meaning in tragedy, to come to terms with her questions about her sexuality, and to figure out how to negotiate her own ever-shifting new friendships. And when her oldest friend’ s life is in danger, she must summon up her wits, imagination, and the ghosts that haunt her to save them both.