Rating: 
Summary: an ok book
Review: It was a really good book until the end. I dont want to ruin it for those of you who haven't read it. It is an ok book, and if you can find time to read it do so, but if not you aren't missing to much.
Rating: 
Summary: a real crowd pleaser
Review: It's 1947 in Brooklyn and altar boy Michael Devlin is 11 years old. He lives for the Brooklyn Dodgers, comic books, Saturday matinees and his Mother who was widowed during the War. But now his whole insular world is about to change. The Dodgers have a new player and he's black. Michael has a new friend and he's a Jewish rabbi--Judah Hirsch, a refugee from the Holocaust. And Michael and the rabbi have offended the local gang of Irish toughs, The Falcons and their brutal leader, Frankie McCarthy. Just when it seemed that the War had vanquished evil, it turns out that the malevolent forces of racism and hatred have a foothold in Michael's own neighborhood. In order to survive, Michael, his mother and the rabbi have to call upon resources that they don't even realize that they possess, including even the dreadful Golem of Jewish mystic tradition. I'm not a huge Pete Hamill fan and the political agendas that are at work here are a little bit heavy handed (particularly in one fight scene at Ebbett's Field). But I'm as big a sucker as anybody for those magical fantasies of boyhood (see Boy's Life by Robert McCammon, Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury, etc.) and what really makes this book a terrific read is the relationship between Michael and Rabbi Hirsch. Michael's friends originally put him up to finding the secret buried treasure of the Jews that they think lies buried within the synagogue. But as Michael helps the rabbi with his English and teaches him about America and the rabbi in turn teaches him Yiddish and unfolds the beauties of preWar Europe, Michael discovers that the real secret treasure is love of learning. Despite some scenes that may be excessively violent for younger readers, the emphasis on education and shared experience and love of words and literature is so compelling, that you hope that teens will read and love the book. And if the whole schtick with the Golem is a little bit over the top, I was willing to cut Hamill some slack because I'd bought into his characters and wanted to see justice served. This one has something for everybody--a bittersweet coming of age tale, a humanist message, an evocative glance back at Brooklyn in the 40's and Europe in the 30's, a hefty chunk of Judaica and a little bit of dark fantasy--it's a real crowd pleaser. GRADE: A
Rating:
Summary: Blitz-style writing, but still a good read
Review: This story is fast-moving, believable, well-placed in time and location, the 1940's Brooklyn. Pete Hamill gives a balanced treatment of two different, but closely related, religions: Judaism of old Poland, and the Jansenist Catholicism of the Irish immigrants. The juxtaposition of an adult, a Polish rabbi, and a preteen, Irish altar boy, makes for some very interesting tensions and exchanges of culture. The boy as the younger, wanting to learn, miraculously learns enough Yiddish to bargain down in the Garment center for his own suit and impresses his mother enormously. The man, although only about 40, comes across as old and stubborn, lonely and lost. He's lost his wife Leah when she's arrested for resistance activities in Poland, and through various routes through South America gets into the USA and finds a job as a miserably-paid rabbi in Brooklyn.Since it's in my nature to nitpick, there are some quirks that bug me: 1. The single mother role of our young hero, the Irish widow who works at a movie cinema collecting tickets. She's warmhearted, open to the rabbi, and delights in a gas stove, and the free rent in exchange for maintaining her landlord's apartment building. This might be so, that she doesn't show fatigue, anger, depression and homesickness, that she always puts on a brave front for her only child. But chances were that she was close to desperate, alone there in Brooklyn in a tough neighborhood, and barely able to pay her bills. What's unrealistic? That she doesn't date, try to find a man, or find a better job; that she doesn't get extremely protective of an only child and keep him off the dangerous streets; that she would keep him away from a despised minority (although Jews were 25% of population in NYC area after WWII) whose ideas about the boy's religion would be considered contamination of a young mind. In other words, why is this not your truly typical Irish immigrant woman: tough, headstrong, prejudiced against other religions, fierce about her children, and determined to maintain her own culture, Lebensanschauung and religion in her home? My mother was the same, and she would NEVER have allowed us kids to have contact at that age with Asian Buddhists, European Jews or GErman Protestants in our local neighborhoods, especially not to the point where I would go to a rabbi's home and learn his language and religion. She knew other religions existed, and she'd say, "Let them! You keep to your own! Ignore them!"2. Why does the rabbi, if shown truly as intellectually curious, not find himself immerged in study of Irish Catholicism? Why does he seem to already know all about it? Because he's from Poland and thinks that the Catholicism practiced there is the same as the boy is experiencing at the local church as altar boy? Why, in other words, is it such a one-way exchange in matters of culture, language and religion? Baseball becomes the "American culture" that the boy transmits, slang and all, to the rabbi, and when they finally do go to a ball game, the rabbi marvels at the ethnic, economic and racial mix present at the game on a workday. He thinks, "This is America! Amazing! And in Poland, they'd all be at work!" Give this some thought and you'd see a fallacy there. There, too, soccer and other sports have grabbed the male mind for generations. Time off work can be arranged, and think, too, of his young life there with Leah's - not much description of heavy work and financial obligations, just political games. So if he and Leah and their friends had such free time, why wouldn't Americans have some free time? For a rabbi, his exclamation doesn't ring true.Pete Hamill wrote this book quickly, it seems to me, albeit the result is good. He could tap into the US fiction market which still thrives, fifty years after WWII, on lurid fixations on the Jews. An Irish boy in 1947 Brooklyn without a father, and a strict peasant Irish mother, would be much more likely to be obsessed with his own identity, his mother's survival, his fatherland's culture and its centuries of oppression, and the priest's point of view - i.e. interest in Latin, Church history, Catholic ethics. Pete Hamill, why not write a book just like it, only in reverse? A poor Jewish boy of Polish immigrant parents, with dead father who fought bravely in the Battle of the Bulge, with a mother dead beat from working in a sweatshop, saves a priest's life and becomes obsessed with Catholic thought, history and culture. The priest transmits all he knows about Ireland and his homeland and its people, while the boy's Jewish mother rejoices in her son's growing knowledge of a different religion and culture. The boy can be an altar boy (instead of a shabbos goy) and even consider conversion. Hmmmmmm. As a grand triumph, when the Jewish boy must wreak revenge on his beloved priest's enemies, he'll call up Irish leprechauns to beat them up.Meshuggenah!Now THAT would be an interesting piece of fiction!
Rating:
Summary: You'll learn something too.
Review: This book is amazing. I'm only 14 and honestly, when I first glanced at the description on the back cover of the book I wasn't looking forward to reading it. Yet, when I started there were many things that kept me going. From the realistic tales the Rabbi tells the boy, to the boy's conduct and language he used. The heartwrenching tales of this boy with such an amazing and strong character. His father dead in war, his life deprived of all luxuries except a new stove, his friends abandon him when they heard rumor he ratted someone out, and yet he still keeps going. With no one by his side. The only goal in his mind is to do what's right.
Rating:
Summary: Faith, Truth and Friendship
Review: Pete Hamill's novel is a gripping and moving story of how people from different backgrounds of religion and ethnicity can learn from one another and grow deeper in their understanding of what faith truly means. Michael Devlin, the 11 year old Irish Catholic altar boy, is an unforgettable young man. At the age when childhood answers, ideas and solutions do not quite work anymore, he is opened to a world of "magic," that is really a world of profound faith. Rabbi Hirsch, recent immigrant from Prague and a Holocaust survivor, recaptures his faith and his trust in humanity through his friendship with Michael. The rabbi's efforts to learn and master the English language and its complexities while make readers smile. Michael's efforts to learn Yiddish from the rabbi while likewise entertain. But there are, too, profound moments of horror and sadness as these two characters--so different and yet so alike--confront the prejudices and bigotries of close-minded neighbors in 1947 Brooklyn. The novel is set against the backdrop of Jackie Robinson's call up to major league baseball. This event, too, solidifies the bond between Rabbi Hirsch and Michael Devlin. The morals and themes presnt in this novel are beautiful and transcend any one religion; they are ideals that all of humanity can and should grasp and live by. The Golem, part of Jewish legend, survives on two things: faith and truth. Faith and truth are the real winners in this beautiful story.
Rating:
Summary: I don't like fairy tale endings..
Review: Never thought a book about any young boy could hold my attention, but this one did. It mirrored so many of my own questions about the Jews (and hey, how DO so many people see a baseball game on a workday?) But the fantasy ending reminded me of how they wrapped up the movie-"the Green Mile"
Rating:
Summary: When The Morals Forget Their Morals
Review: Brilliantly written, Hamill present's an extroadinary talent by so carefully describing 1940s Brooklyn compared to 1930s Prague...An unlikely occurance of an Irish altar boy meeting a poor rabbi opens doors to all sorts of reactions from the parish...In the face of bigotry for the rabbi, and likewise for knowing to much about Mister G's brutal, discriminated assault, Michael must summon the Captain Marvel of the Jews, the Golem, who under the direction of the wizard (rabbi), is able to uproot the nearing "Holocaust" of Frankie and the Falcons...
Rating: 
Summary: Snow in August
Review: I strongly recommend the book Snow in August because two individuals from different religious backgrounds bond together to defeat a common enemy, racism. Through their continous contact, Michael and the rabbi's bong grow stronger surviving acts of racism as well as town beatings. Not only did their bond survive through harsh tests: their retaliation struck fear into other racists and those who oppose them. Those who read this book can learn the valuable lesson that true friendship and strong beliefs can overcome tough obstacles in life.
Rating:
Summary: Foget the ending, it's a masterpeice!
Review: This book kept me on my toes! it was a great story about a child in brocklyn who meets up with a rabbi in a terrable blizard. this story has heart and passion for all religions and times of the period. it is amazing book that kept me reading at all times. i reccomend this book for teenagers of all ages. i did have to read this book for school but after the first few pages i doveright in and felt all that he did. buy the book and i don't work for them but it's great i'm 14 just in case you were wondering.
Rating:
Summary: BrotherHood, Not Make-Believe:
Review: Not a real world? HA! Snow In August may have been told from a boy's point-of-view, but the reality was true...based on fact from my own family, thank you very much. It was in my opinion more about the 'brotherhood' between different cultures (i.e. Irish and Jewish). Reading this book gave me more understanding about the immigrants in the tenements and the problems to follow...as well as the strong sense of hope they all had...
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