The two wrong halves of Ruby Taylor by Amanda Panitch

 All her life, Ruby's best friend has been her cousin Sarah but lately she's been getting increasingly frustrated with her. Their grandmother has always favored Sarah and doesn't consider Ruby Jewish enough, or Jewish at all and Ruby can't lose the memory of overhearing her grandmother denigrate her while Sarah listened and said nothing. She doesn't feel like she can talk to anyone, so she distances herself from Sarah and immerses herself in her new friendship with Amanda. But she can't stop from trying to win her grandmother's favor and when she releases her anger at Sarah in a fight, she also releases something else; a dybbuk.

At first, she doesn't believe the dybbuk is even real, but as Sarah acts out more and more, with increasingly dangerous pranks and attacks on Ruby, their grandmother, and the new (female) rabbi, Ruby realizes Sarah has been possessed and it's up to her to save her cousin. But is she Jewish enough to do it? And what is she saving Sarah from?

Although Ruby struggles with typical tween issues of identity, changing friendships, and family squabbles, she also is dealing with the more challenging issues of deciding how she will express her Jewish heritage and the discovery that adults are flawed and can be cruel and uncaring, even those within her own family. With the guidance of her parents, her friend Amanda, and Rabbi Ellen, Ruby starts on the journey of defining herself and her Jewishness, both within and without the traditions and bindings of her heritage.

The cover is somewhat misleading, with an almost manga-like look, it seems to contrast the two halves of dybbuk-possessed Sarah, rather than Ruby's attempts to reconcile the halves of her heritage. The book isn't really a fantasy either, with the haunting of the dybbuk being almost a secondary plot to Ruby's exploration of her identity. Throughout the story, she has her parents' support, even though she needs to ask for it and initiate conversations about some more serious things. Rabbi Ellen adds to Ruby's journey in thoughtful guidance on what tradition means and how she found her own path as well as deal with those, like Grandma Yvette, who are tightly bound within their traditions.

Verdict: There is a growing number of books about children with mixed cultural and racial heritage coming to terms with their identity and this is a great addition to that genre with an extra spooky twist of the dybbuk. A strong addition to middle grade collections.

ISBN: 9781250245137; Published August 2022 by Roaring Brook; Borrowed from another library in my consortium