Review: From Dust, A Flame
From Dust, A Flame by Rebecca Podos Balzer + Bray (imprint of HarperCollins), 2022 Category: Young Adult Reviewer: Sarah Blattner Buy at Bookshop.org With a scholarship to Winthrop Academy in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, bookish Hannah Kowalski secures the stability she craves for herself and her “theater kid” older brother Gabe. But the foundation begins to crack on the eve of Hannah’s seventeenth birthday, when her mother reveals that she is Jewish, the first of her many secrets. The next morning, Hannah awakens to golden, snakelike eyes staring back at her in the mirror. Soon after, Hannah grows wolflike canines, and Malka departs on a quest to find a healer to ensure Hannah’s safety. A one-week trip turns into three, and that’s when a family death announcement arrives in the mail. Close siblings, Hannah and Gabe set out on a mission to find their mother and the family they never knew in the quaint village of Fox Hollow, New York, where they discover their Jewish family roots. Whil...