The Length of A String

by: Elissa Brent Weissman

Book Summary:

Imani is adopted, and she's ready to search for her birthparents. But when she discovers the diary her Jewish great-grandmother wrote chronicling her escape from Holocaust-era Europe, Imani begins to see family in a new way.

Imani knows exactly what she wants as her big bat mitzvah gift: to meet her birthparents. She loves her family and her Jewish community in Baltimore, but she has always wondered where she came from, especially since she's black and almost everyone she knows is white. When her mom's grandmother--Imani's great-grandma Anna--passes away, Imani discovers an old diary among her books. It's Anna's diary from 1941, the year she was twelve--the year she fled Nazi-occupied Luxembourg alone, sent by her parents to seek refuge in Brooklyn. Written as a series of letters to the twin sister she had to leave behind, Anna's diary records her journey to America and her new life with an adopted family. Anna's diary and Imani's birthparent search intertwine to tell the story of two girls, each searching for family and identity in her own time and in her own way.

My Thoughts

Others should read it because it’s really interesting to see a kid my age write her thoughts as a kid without family, during war and never knowing if she is ever going to see her family again. This book is a real page turner, and you are not going to be able to put down this book after starting! You should definitely read this book!

Updated Review (December 3rd, 2021)

I had felt that my original thoughts on this book were not all that I had to say about this amazing book and that the review did not do the book justice so I'd updated my thoughts with a more thoughtful and detailed review a few weeks ago. Somehow, the updated review had gotten deleted. However, two years after I wrote the updated review, while I was organizing the site and categories, I checked post history and found that review for you to read below!

I re-read The Length of a String because personally, it was a very memorable read, and I wanted to update this post with more detail. There are few books where I can say it was on my top ten, and I'm so glad to be able to give this book a spot on my top-ten list! I honestly really like books with two time periods. This book switched between Anna's life during WW2, and Imani's 21st century life. The writing was impeccable and I loved the way that the readers could see the similarities in Imani and Anna despite their stories being decades apart. One of my favorite elements of this book and why this book received a spot on my top-ten list was because of Ms. Weissman's subtle way in uncovering mysteries about Anna's past and the way that she was able to weave in Anna's story in Imani's. Also, the emotion and the letters and Anna's diary and how it was all written – it was as if she had gone into the past, experienced those events herself, and then wrote this as if this was her own story. A must-read this if you can and are interested in these kinds of books.