The Length of a String

Elissa Brent Weissman’s middle-grade young adult novel, The Length of a String (2018), recommended for readers age ten and up, is a suitable book for young people who are interested in learning about the Holocaust but unprepared to face the more horrific aspects of the history. The book was awarded the Sydney Taylor Honor Book by the Association of Jewish Libraries and was named Tablet Magazine’s Best Jewish Children’s Books of 2018.

The Length of a String is a part historical and part contemporary novel about a young adopted Jewish black girl who, after discovering her late great-grandmother’s diary from 1941, learns a valuable lesson about belonging. Imani is eager to start a search for her birth parents to find out why she was given up for adoption. After finding her Jewish great-grandmother’s diary recording her flight from Nazi-occupied Europe, Imani has a new perspective on family. Undergoing a year of tremendous growth, she comes to understand the world around her from a more evolved perspective as well as her place in it.

On the cusp of her Bat Mitzvah, Imani’s parents tell her that she can have anything she wants for a gift. Imani knows that she wants is to find her birth parents, but she is afraid to ask. Though Imani loves her family and her Jewish community, as an adopted young black girl, soon to become a woman, she wonders where she came from. She is being raised by loving parents, a brother who adores her, and a supportive extended family. As one of the few black kids in her Baltimore town, she is used to the, at times, insensitive questions regarding her background. She longs for connection with those who share her biology.



When her mother’s grandmother, Anna, passes away, Imani hears the Rabbi mention something at her funeral that makes Imani think that Anna may have been adopted. Imani is aware that her great grandmother came to America from Luxembourg when she was young but that is all she knows. Shortly after the funeral, Imani discovers an old journal belonging to Anna among her books. These items have been left to Imani, her younger brother, Jaime, and her younger cousin, Isabel. The journal turns out to be Anna’s diary. In 1941, when Anna was twelve years old, her parents sent her to seek refuge in Brooklyn, New York. At the time, her home was occupied by the Nazi’s. Anna left Luxembourg alone.

Anna wrote about her journey to America to start a new life with an adopted family. As Imani reads her great grandmother’s story, she begins to view her own family and her place in it in a new way. As she continues to read, she learns even more about Anna’s life, her twin sister, Belle, her older brother, Kurt, and her younger siblings, Mina, Greta, and Oliver. Imani reads about life in a Nazi-occupied area.

Anna’s family had U.S. sponsors, and her parents had planned for her siblings to quickly follow Anna. However, there was a last minute change in travel plans when the passeur abruptly raised the passage fee and the cost of papers, allowing only one family member to travel at a time instead of two.



Anna arrived in Bensonhurst and was taken in by a couple named Max and Hannah. Max worked in the garment district as a furrier for his uncles who had escaped the Russian pogroms when they were young men. Anna’s first friend was Freddy, a boy who helped teach her English. He also showed her how to play the popular street games and introduced her to Coney Island.

Anna expressed in her diary that she hoped to share all she had experienced with Belle and the rest of her family when they joined her in America. However, Imani already knows that Anna’s family never made it to New York and were all sent to the camps where they eventually died. This undercurrent of sadness makes Anna’s diary, as well as her story, even more precious.

Imani’s Bat Mitzvah preparations include a Holocaust project for her Hebrew school. The project encompasses the exploration of family roots and genealogy. At first uninspired by this project, Anna’s diary ends up greatly informing this project, serving as a touch point for Imani’s personal plans. She decides to showcase Luxembourg during the Holocaust. Imani also decides to use the diary to help her speak to her parents about her wishes.



Reading her great grandmother’s diary causes Imani to think further on searching for her birth parents and the impact it might have on her family as well as her future. The author draws a direct line between Imani and Anna. Imani is able to draw upon Anna’s experience to figure out what she really needs to know about her past. The author shifts back and forth between Imani’s voice and Anna’s. The reader observes the transformation as Imani deepens her understanding of who she is and where she is going. The string in the title acts not only as a unit of measurement but also as a metaphor for the connection between past, present, and people.

Elissa Brent Weissman writes novels for the eight- to twelve-year-old set. She is best known for her Nerd Camp series which was named a best summer read for ages ten to fourteen by The Washington Post and won the Cybils Award for middle grade fiction.