Make a Wish, Molly by Barbara Cohen, 1994.

This book is the sequel to Molly’s Pilgrim.

Things have improved for Molly in Winter Hill since she and Emma became friends.  Now, Molly doesn’t feel quite so alone as she once did.  However, Emma is still friends with the nasty Elizabeth (resident mean girl from the first book).  Molly has learned that a major part of Elizabeth’s resentment toward her is that Elizabeth is used to being the teacher’s pet and the center of attention at school.  In both first and second grade, she always seemed to be the favorite student.  Now, in the third grade, Elizabeth thinks that their teacher prefers Molly, and she can’t stand it.  So, she tries to make trouble for Molly whenever she can and make others not like her, too.

Emma tries to ignore Elizabeth’s nastiness and invites both girls to her birthday party.  Molly is excited because she’s never been to a birthday party in America before, and birthdays are celebrated very differently in America from the way they were in Russia.  Emma and Elizabeth (in her condescending way) explain how birthday parties are, that the birthday girl receives presents from her friends and gives them small party favors in return, and that there is cake and ice cream for everyone.  Molly has never had a cake like the ones that the girls look at in the bakery window and is eager to try it.  But, there’s a problem.

Molly’s mother says that it’s fine for her to go to the party and is willing to make some doll clothes for Emma’s birthday present, but she says that Molly cannot try the cake because the party will take place during Passover, and Jewish families like theirs cannot eat leavened foods during that time. Leavened foods are those that include rising agents, like yeast, baking powder, and baking soda, which includes cakes and breads. For Passover, Molly and her family are limited to things which don’t have these ingredients.

Instead, Molly’s mother packs a snack for Molly to take and eat while the others have the cake.  At first, Molly thinks maybe she could disobey her mother just this once and try the cake anyway without her noticing and without feeling different among the other girls, but when a piece of cake is placed in front of her at the party, she can’t bring herself to eat it.

Of course, Elizabeth takes advantage of Molly’s inability to eat the cake to make her feel bad and look bad in front of the others.  Elizabeth says that Jewish people don’t like to eat in Christian homes.  Molly tries to explain that isn’t the problem and to tell them about Passover, but Elizabeth ignores her explanation and just says that Molly’s reluctance to eat proves that what her mother told her about Jews was true.  (Let me just say that when a kid is as awful as Elizabeth is routinely, I always assume that the parents are exactly the same way.  I decided that Elizabeth’s mother was probably a bully and a snob back in the first book, so hearing that she’s been spewing anti-Semitic comments is no more than what I would have expected.  I view this type of behavior as an off-shoot of a bullying mindset, so I would completely expect that a person who is prone to one type of bullying would also engage in another. The apples never fall far from the tree.)  Molly knows that she can’t make the other kids understand the situation, so she just leaves in embarrassment.

When she gets home, Molly tells her mother about what happened.  Her mother says that everyone is a little different from other people, and there’s no use in pretending that they don’t live different types of lives from some of their neighbors.  However, Molly also has a birthday coming soon, and Molly’s mother thinks that if they invite some of the girls from Emma’s party to their house for a celebration, they will see that Molly’s family isn’t quite as different as they might think.

At first, Molly isn’t sure that it will be such a good idea, but it turns out better than she expects.  Her birthday is full of wonderful surprises.  There’s no cake, but Molly’s mother bakes other wonderful goodies, like rugelach (pastries with apples, raisins, and nuts).  Emma and another girl, Fay, try them and like them, but Elizabeth still refuses.  She also just looks defiant when Molly’s mother proves to her that Jews will wash and reuse plates that Christians have eaten from, not throw them away, like Elizabeth’s mother said before.  Once again, the issue with Elizabeth isn’t how correct or incorrect she (or her mother) was in whatever she said but whether or not she happens to look better than someone else at the current moment.  All Molly’s mother’s demonstration means to her is that she just lost another opportunity to look better than someone, and that annoys her.  But, Molly doesn’t care so much about Elizabeth’s lingering nastiness at that point because she knows that Emma is still her friend and Fay has just become a new friend.

There is also a movie version of this book, although the story was altered slightly so that the girl who insults Molly at the party says that it was her aunt who told her all the bad stuff about Jews, not her mother.  Also, the movie takes place in a time contemporary with when it was made.  The original book takes place in the past, judging by why the reasons why Molly’s family had to leave Russia and the clothes that the girls wear in the pictures.