The Weight of the Sky

Sarah has just finished her junior year at a high school in Pennsylvania. As a professed band geek and the only one among her friends who is Jewish, she is always on the outside looking in. When her parents announce plans to send her to Israel to spend the summer, she's shocked that they would make plans like that without consulting her. At least that's her initial reaction, because once she starts to really consider the idea, she realizes that might be just the thing she needs to find out who she truly is. After a brief visit in Jerusalem with relatives, Sarah heads to the kibbutz, where she will spend the remainder of the summer. Shy and withdrawn, it takes a bit of courage for Sarah to find her place in the group of kibbutz residents and volunteers. Once she begins working in the fields, sharing meals with the others, and doing some exploring, Sarah finds she is more at home here than back in Pennsylvania. The land is beautiful and rich with her history and religion. But underneath the beauty is a violence between people that Sarah just can't quite understand. Lisa Ann Sandell uses verse to take readers on this self-discovery type journey with Sarah. I could sense her appreciation and inspiration, yet also feel her confusion as she spends time exploring her native land and heritage. Thoughtful readers will find this a welcome addition to any library shelf. Reviewed by: Sally Kruger, aka "Readingjunky"

Narrating this novel in a free verse style that reads like prose, sixteen year old Sarah tells the story of the summer she spends working on an Israeli kibbutz. For an American girl from a small, mainly Christian town, in Pennsylvania who considers herself a dork and an outsider, it is a transformative experience. Along with the thrill of belonging as a Jew in a Jewish land, Sarah experiences her first taste of independence and her first romantic encounters with boys. Her impressions of Israel, especially Jerusalem and the area of the Galilee where she works as a kibbutz volunteer, are idealistic but acute; they will evoke memories in any reader who has been already been there and will arouse curiosity in those who haven't. Her personal growth, achieved with some pain but also with much satisfaction, is beautifully portrayed; Sarah is a character with whom many teenage readers will identify and ultimately, admire. Other characters are seen through her eyes and emerge as distinct and dimensional individuals, especially the two Israeli boys to whom she is attracted. When one of them, a soldier, is killed, Sarah's almost idyllic summer is shattered and for the first time, she longs for the safety of her home in America. This incident is one of a few that relate to political issues and all of them are dealt with subtly, providing context for a story about living in present-day Israel and background to the lives and feelings of the young Israelis with whom Sarah interacts. The conclusion, once Sarah is back in the United States and applying to colleges, affirms her commitment to Israel and illustrates the options open to almost all Jewish American young people. This is the author's first novel and, like two other recent novels about contemporary Israel, Pnina Moed Kass's Real Time and Tammar Stein's Light Years, it is highly recommended for teenagers. Reviewed by Linda R. Silver

I worked on a kibbutz myself many years ago. And what Sandell is exactly right: it's foreign and beautiful and depressing all at once. Reading this book brought it all back to me. But it's a lot more than a novel about life on the kibbutz. Lisa Ann Sandell's novel is that rarest and most difficult of things to achieve: a readable novel in verse. At first I wasn't sure if I'd enjoy this. Frankly it's not the sort of thing I normally read. But once you get into it, the book reveals its true quality. This is billed as Young Adult fiction. And it's very useful as an introduction to life in modern Israel. Certainly it's not beyond any reasonably literate 12 year old. But the book deserves a much wider audience. Buy it for a child, yes. But make sure you also read it yourself. First class.

THE WEIGHT OF THE SKY is written solely in free verse- a popular form of poetry that does not rhyme nor does it have a meter. Its popularity stems from the belief that free verse is poetry without rules. Moreover, it is different from prose or poetry in the arrangement of carefully chosen words into verses. Lisa Ann Sandell's debut novel, THE WEIGHT OF THE SKY is powerful in its simplicity. What is more amazing is that the entire story is written in verse, no small feat by any means! The characters are very much alive as are the settings, both in the flashbacks in Pennsylvania and in Israel. The narrative focuses on a simple plot involving an insecure sixteen -year old Sarah, the only Jew in her class in Pennsylvania, who is sent to violence- torn Israel for a summer vacation. Gradually, she falls in love with the country, despite the brutality, the shootings in the streets and bombs going off on buses that that are reported daily news broadcasts. Lior and Nadaf, two handsome soldiers help her on the road from insecure adolescence to maturity. Harsh life on Kibbutz Kfar Avivim makes her want to return to her cozy home in Pennsylvania, but the beauty surrounding her, the smells, the sounds, and the friendships, override her homesickness. Sandell's writing can be compared to a beautiful painting with all the attributes of a master painter. She brings tears to your eyes with the contrast of so much beauty and yet so much sadness. For example, when Sarah asks Michal, the cousin she is staying with: "Aren't you proud of them,(Michal's sons) fighting for Israel? She glances at me, the lines (etched on her forehead) deepen, Her mouth screwed up in a grimace. Yes, I'm proud of them, Sarah, But not for fighting." Or when she describes the setting sun on Kibbutz Kfar Avivim: "We're sitting on a wooden bench in the garden, watching the sun dip down below the horizon. It falls slowly to the crests of the hills And sinks in A flare of fuchsia and golden flames." The Weight of the Sky should not be limited to the Young Adult audience. Everyone should read and enjoy the beautiful free verse written by such a talented author. Lily Azerad-Goldman, Artist and Reviewer for Bookpleasures

Lisa Sandell's "The Weight of the Sky" is one of those rare books that linger long after you put them down. In Sarah, a teenaged-girl who spends a summer on a kibbutz in Israel, Sandell has created a compelling heroine, one whose voice, insight and sensitivity give the novel its air of lyrical enchantment. While Jewish readers are likely to revere Sarah's astute, piercing observations about contemporary Israel, "The Weight of the Sky" is, at heart, a universal novel; Sarah's soul-searching and her struggle to find her identity and gain her independence would undoubtedly resonate with young adult readers, regardless of their background. Finally, Sandell's decision to write the novel in short, lucid, poem-like chapters makes for a spellbinding reading experience, one that transforms the reader not only to an exotic land, Israel, but also into the mind of a clever, thoughtful young woman as she first awakens to her own identity. The book, in short, is masterful, and is a must for lovers of serious, beautiful fiction, be their age whatever it may.