Gabe is born disabled, and his loving Jewish family teaches and supports him. They miss him when he attends a special school during the week, but everyone looks forward to Shabbat, when they welcome him home for the weekend. Then Gabe turns 13; how will he celebrate his Bar Mitzvah? Like many stories about the disabled, this moving chapter book is told through the eyes of a sibling. Gabe's younger sister, Leah, loves her brother, even though she does get impatient with him sometimes, and she worries that he will mess up in public in the synagogue. His difficulties are never minimized, but with the help of his family and an extraordinary rabbi, Gabe says the Bar Mitzvah prayer his way, all by himself, and he is welcomed into the community. With humanity and hope, the story dramatizes the rabbi's message of acceptance, that "each of us is special in our own way, because we are all created in God's image."
