The Way Back

Finalist, National Book Awards 2020 for Young People's Literature

ISBN 9781984894625
Knopf Books for Young Readers / Penguin Random House
Gavriel Savit

Gavriel Savit holds a BFA in musical theater from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where he grew up. As an actor and singer, Gavriel has performed on three continents, from New York to Brussels to Tokyo. He is also the author of Anna and the Swallow Man, which the New York Times called “a splendid debut.” More about this author >

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From the publisher:

If the world of the living were a suit of clothes and the world of the dead the bony flesh beneath, then at each elbow there would be a cemetery gate.

Here the dead rub up against the living world.

Here the living world wears thin.

Yehuda Leib and Bluma have separate, unexpected meetings with The Dark One: Death. Meetings which push them on journeys far from their homes across the Far Country – the world of the dead . . .

Judges Citation

The Way Back by Gavriel Savit is a spellbinding historical fantasy steeped in the rich Yiddish folklore of Eastern Europe. Yehuda Leib and Bluma are the best kind of unlikely heroes, finding courage to match wits with the sinister forces of the mysterious “Far Country,” and relying on each other in a way that will endear every reader. This compelling and timeless tale is beautiful, lyrical, and brimming with wholly original takes on familiar themes.

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