Kirkus Reviews likes Beni's War!

"When a 12-year-old’s tiny country is invaded, everyone is touched by war. 

Beni doesn’t like his new home on the moshav in this Israeli farming community. He misses Jerusalem, and he’s bullied by the other boys. But everything changes on the Yom Kippur holiday in 1973 when his country is unexpectedly invaded. Beni lives only a 10-minute drive from the border with Syria, and his home takes heavy fire from mortar shells. After hours in a shelter, Beni emerges to rubble and burning fields. Evacuated to his grandparents’ house, he can’t stop worrying about his brother, Motti, headed to the Egyptian front in a tank. But life goes on, even in a national crisis. Beni learns about fixing cars, becomes friends with the boys who were once his enemies, and always, always, worries about Motti. When Beni’s family receives devastating and terrifying news, he just wants to feel less helpless. And so Beni embarks on a quest to help his brother. His rage at Egypt conflicts with his emerging questions about Egyptian prisoners of war: Do they eat the same food, have the same fears as the Israelis? 1970s Israel is fully realized with loving attention to detail, and subplots about daily human concerns further round out the characters. The Jewish characters are cued as Ashkenazim.

Readers coping with shattered contemporary realities will recognize themselves in a child’s fears and growing empathy." ― Kirkus Reviews Journal