The Old Country

Mordicai Gerstein's portrayal of Philippe Petit's high-wire walk between the towers of the World Trade Center, The Man Who Walked Between the Towers, won the 2004 Caldecott Medal and was among the most admired books of the year. Now comes a memorable new work, a novel of singular insight and imagination that transports readers to the Old Country, where “every winter was a hundred years and every spring a miracle . . . where the water was like music and the music was like water . . . where a...