Guarding the Moon by Leah Damski

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GUARDING THE MOON allows a rare glimpse into the world of Persian Jews, a window into the life of sixteen-year-old Aliza, who is attacked by a local white supremacist gang near their quiet town on the Jersey Shore. With the local police unreliable, Aliza and her brother, Aaron, enlist help from their grandmother, an expert in Kabbalistic rituals. Coupled with Aliza’s mad pottery-making skills, they create and bring to life a mystical golem made of clay to protect them from the gang. With attacks on the rise and their synagogue now a target, the kids and their friends must come up with a plan for him to restore peace to Ocean Peak in this contemporary young YA novel, infused with magical realism.

The kids are tasked with keeping the golem hidden from the public while also plotting to search out the perpetrators and scare them away. But the golem is overrun and captured by gang members. Aliza must become the hero now. This is all against the backdrop of a frantic Aaron who is not prepared for his Bar Mitzvah, now just days away. And if things ever do get resolved, how can the kids part with the golem they’ve come to love and send him back into the oblivion from which he came?

GUARDING THE MOON touches on racism, evil, and the hate that has burdened the Jewish nation for generations. Ultimately, it explores the weight of history, the way it travels down the generations, and how it both binds and separates us. On a more personal scale, it also addresses the ways we feel safe or unsafe growing up in our worlds and homes as adolescents.