I'd rec Hereville, but I don't what age you are looking for. I think you'd have to be 10 or older to appreciate it (or maybe a really precocious eight). [link]

BTW - NOT "a cross between fiddler on the roof and Harry Potter". I think the review is by someone who does not read much fantasy and who has not watched Fiddler on the Roof in a long time. But the hero is a late 19th or early 20th century Hasid girl who rescues witches and fights trolls. But otherwise I think the review is not a bad representation of the book.

But the hero is a late 19th or early 20th century Hasid girl who rescues witches and fights trolls.

I think it's set much later than that. In the scene where she falls down the hill and ends up in someone's backyard, they're having a barbecue with a propane grill. And there's an automatic coffee maker in the kitchen, and a cordless phone. I think it's the 1980s at the earliest.

Forgot about that. I guess I thought of it as 19th century because so much of the setting sounds 19th century.

It seemed pretty modern to me, especially in that scene about preparing for Shabbat -- the cooking and cleaning would have been totally different in the nineteenth century. Nineteenth-century preparing-for-Shabbat scenes seem to always include someone either killing or plucking a chicken, and a whole lot of fetching water.

There did not seem to be electricity. Maybe I've forgotten that too.

There's definitely electricity. There's no TV, but there's plenty of other electric stuff. That Shabbat scene includes vacuuming and ironing.

My memory does not seem to be getting beter. I do remember it was a very cool book though.

Hil, I think the books you've settled on for your friend's kids are great (I've been meaning to get a copy of The Snowy Day for Rose), but thought I'd put in a plug for our current favorite book, Ten Nine Eight by Molly Bang. It's our bedtime book and is really warm and sweet and charming: [link]

I'm reading Josephine Tey's "Brat Farrer" for the first time, and I now know what kind of writer I want to be when I grow up. Her style is sort of minimalist, in that there's little overt description, but it's all so evocative. A girl describes Aunt Bee as having a face like an expensive cat, which she is secretly pleased by, and the rector's wife later says, "Yes, but not the fluffy kind." And I can instantly picture Aunt Bee. I don't know the color of her hair or her height or build, but I know her.

In referring to a dead relative, Bee say "Walter has died." The rector's wife asks "Did he die in an odour of sanctity?" "Carbolic. A workhouse ward I believe." I snickered so loud the other people in the lunch room looked intrigued, but I didn't look up to give them the satisfaction.

And she has dozens of books I've never read!

Ah, you're in for a treat. Not dozens, though, only 6 or 7.