Full of characters that are courageous, smart, and full of heart, BEINONI is an action-packed adventure.
BEINONI
by Mari Lowe
Levine Querido, July 2025
(via Context Literary)

In a Beinoni time there should be no war, no terrible illness, no crime. Even if that also means there won’t be any great discoveries, any cures, anything extraordinary. Ezra believes that’s worth fighting for.
In fact, he’s been training most of his life to fight a battle to determine whether Beinoni time continues, or gives way to a more violent, less certain future. He is the Nivchar, the chosen one, with the sign of the scales on his skin. When he comes of age at his bar mitzvah, so too will the gurya, a fiery beast of uncertain form, emerging from a cave to conquer, destroy, and herald a time of conflict.
But Ezra begins to sense that something is very wrong. His friends, his neighbors, the whole world is losing the careful, even balance he’s come to expect in a Beinoni time. It was always uncertain whether he’d be able to best his terrifying, magical foe. But now, is it even possible?.
Mari Lowe has too little free time and spends it all on writing and escape rooms. As the daughter of a rabbi and as a middle school teacher at an Orthodox Jewish school, she looks forward to sharing little glimpses into her community with her books. Her debut middle grade novel, Aviva vs. the Dybbuk, was named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, Kirkus, and is a Sydney Taylor Book Award winner. She lives in New York with her family, menagerie of pets, and robotic vacuum.

Alice has been unhappy ever since her parents sent her to Prince Edward Island to live with her strict grandmother. Alice is fanciful, prone to telling tall tales, and absolutely
Fifteen-year-old Hana is bored by her humdrum existence in Tokyo—there must be more to life than cram school and chores. After she rescues a crow caught in a net by her house, a mysterious visitor arrives at her door, offering her the chance to enroll in the most prestigious magic academy in Japan: The Benten School of Esoterics.
Bear knows that when the last leaf falls in the forest, whatever wish you make is sure to come true! Although it’s almost time to sleep, Mama allows Bear to watch and wait with his friends.
Doors are closing, lights are dimming. Strings are singing, it’s beginning.