Finn and Ezra's Bar Mitzvah Time Loop

February 19, 2024
When 13-year-old Ezra Rosen starts repeatedly reliving his bar mitzvah weekend, he wonders if there’s a way out. Then he meets fellow 13-year-old Finn Einstein, who is also caught in the same 55-hour time loop. Armed with myriad theories on why this is happening—as well as many more about how to break the loop—type A Finn and cautious Ezra spend countless variations of the weekend putting their plans into motion and learning through trial and error. Enacting schemes such as engineering “the perfect loop” and robbing a bank, they leave no potential solve unexplored. It’s only when they discover the physicists convention taking place in the same hotel that they see real progress. While juggling matters of science, family, and faith, the two new friends must confront their personal challenges and vulnerabilities if they hope to break free. Levy (The Jake Show) puts a new spin on time loop tropes by infusing this energetic tale with Jewish sensibilities via Ezra’s conservative family traditions and Finn’s reformed upbringing, making for a delightfully offbeat read about becoming a man dozens of times over. The protagonists read as white; most characters are Jewish. Ages 8–12. Agent: Elana Roth Parker, Laura Dail Literary.

April 1, 2024
Two boys stuck in an unexplained temporal anomaly join forces and try to escape. The middle kid of five, Ezra often feels overlooked in his family; Finn is an only child with adoring parents but no friends. Both boys end up trapped in a 55-hour time loop on their shared bar mitzvah weekend at the Bergenville Hotel in New Jersey. When they figure out what's going on, Finn announces, "We're in this together for some reason. And we're gonna get out together too." They try everything they can think of, from doing good deeds and running a "perfect loop" to winning the lottery to carrying out a bank heist. In the process, they learn about their families, each other, quantum physics, and time travel in the Talmud. The first-person narration alternates between Finn and Ezra; varied chapter lengths effectively help control the pace of the story. Ezra's family attends a different synagogue and is more religious than Finn's, so some of Ezra's explanations to Finn will help readers who are unfamiliar with Judaism. Ultimately, both boys, who read white, learn to look more carefully at what's right under their noses. Facing the ordinary challenges of life is what enables them to break out of their extraordinary "timey-wimey" challenge. Exciting and heartfelt. (Fiction. 10-14)

COPYRIGHT(2024) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

April 15, 2024
Grades 5-7 Taking the Groundhog Day premise for a wild ride, Levy strands two 13-year-olds in a weekend-long time loop as they struggle to figure out what's happening and to find a way out. The two meet at a New Jersey hotel, where their families have gathered in different ballrooms for a ceremony; Finn, a gifted only child, regards Ezra's boisterous and strongly Jewish Orthodox clan with envy, whereas Ezra, a quiet and underachieving middle child, feels the same way about all the attention Finn receives. In the end, there's more than enough love in both families to go around, and it's the two candidates' personal characters, more than all the frustratingly fruitless and often hilarious escape schemes, that provide the keys to breaking out. In the meantime, the author inserts clues to what's actually going on so artfully that even alert readers are going to have aha moments. The tale is embedded within such a rich matrix of Jewish customs that the story is likely to have an informational aspect for audiences of any belief or culture.

COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

July 1, 2024
Finn and Ezra, both thirteen, are destined to relive their bar mitzvah weekends, from Friday through Sunday afternoon, countless times. While their overlapping plights initially seem coincidental, as they progress through more and more inescapable loops, their stories become increasingly intertwined. On the surface, the boys are very different from each other, but through their trials trying to get to Monday, they discover commonalities and universal truths. Ezra's life within an insular Orthodox community is presented in contrast to Finn's more worldly outlook, and both boys grapple with judgment and occasionally with jealousy of each other. Many aspects of traditional Jewish life and culture are explained through the lens of Finn's encountering them for the first time, with a lightly informative rather than preachy approach. Themes of trust, friendship, family, and growing up are thoughtfully interspersed with madcap adventures involving physicists, bank heists, and elaborate lies. Ethical dilemmas within a fantastical premise nonetheless raise real questions about how adolescents can decide what kind of people they want to be. An unexpectedly poignant resolution offers the main characters a chance to prove that they made the most of their time, while not-so-subtly encouraging readers to do the same. Miriam Steinberg-Egeth

(Copyright 2024 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

July 1, 2024
Finn and Ezra, both thirteen, are destined to relive their bar mitzvah weekends, from Friday through Sunday afternoon, countless times. While their overlapping plights initially seem coincidental, as they progress through more and more inescapable loops, their stories become increasingly intertwined. On the surface, the boys are very different from each other, but through their trials trying to get to Monday, they discover commonalities and universal truths. Ezra's life within an insular Orthodox community is presented in contrast to Finn's more worldly outlook, and both boys grapple with judgment and occasionally with jealousy of each other. Many aspects of traditional Jewish life and culture are explained through the lens of Finn's encountering them for the first time, with a lightly informative rather than preachy approach. Themes of trust, friendship, family, and growing up are thoughtfully interspersed with madcap adventures involving physicists, bank heists, and elaborate lies. Ethical dilemmas within a fantastical premise nonetheless raise real questions about how adolescents can decide what kind of people they want to be. An unexpectedly poignant resolution offers the main characters a chance to prove that they made the most of their time, while not-so-subtly encouraging readers to do the same.

(Copyright 2024 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)