Product Description

Sarah, like every college-bound junior, deals with constant pressure from teachers, friends, and parents. Besides that, she’s a marching band geek and the only Jew in her class. So when she gets a chance to spend the summer on a kibbutz in Israel, Sarah jumps at the opportunity to escape her world. But living in Israel brings new complications, and when the idyllic world Sarah creates suddenly shatters, she finds herself longing for the home she thought she’d outgrown.

This lyrical novel beautifully captures the experience of leaving behind a life that’s too small, and the freedom of searching for a place with a perfect fit.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #511835 in Books
• Published on: 2006-03-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 304 pages

From School Library Journal
Grade 8 Up-Sarah Green, 16, is one of two Jewish students at her small Pennsylvania high school. A self-described band geek, she is tormented by the popular clique and overburdened by her feeling that her religion is a conscious decision every day of her life. When her parents offer to send her to Israel for the summer, she jumps at the chance to assert her independence, reinvent herself in a new place, and live and work on a kibbutz. While her journey to find herself is not without hardship and challenges, and her idealistic view of Israel and kibbutz life is shattered, Sarah survives the summer transformed, with a new sense of Jewish identity, a deeper connection to the land of Israel, increased self-confidence, and a more mature awareness of her own sexuality. The fast-paced, easy-to-read, free-verse narration captures the voice of a typical American teen. Sarah's coming-of-age experience could have happened during any summer camp or work experience, making the book accessible to a general teen audience. Look to Tammar Stein's Light Years (Knopf, 2005) or Pnina Moed Kass's Real Time (Clarion, 2004) for a stronger sense of life in contemporary Israel.-Rachel Kamin, Temple Israel Libraries & Media Center, West Bloomfield, MI
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About the Author
Lisa Ann Sandell lives in New York City. This is her first novel.

Customer Reviews

Weight of the Sky
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

A beautifully written book
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.

Sandell's Writing Can Be Compared To A Beautiful Painting!
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