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Allegra Maud Goldman
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Allegra Maud Goldman

A Novel
Edith Konecky

Foreword by Alix Kates Shulman. Introduction by Tillie Olsen. Afterword by Bella Brodzki.

Beloved by readers of all ages since its first appearance in 1976, Allegra Maud Goldman tracks the coming to consciousness of a feisty and sharply observant Jewish girl growing up in 1930s Brooklyn. Allegra encounters the usual trials of bourgeois childhood—the confinement of first schooldays, the confusion of fumbled sex education, the humiliations of dress-shopping—and a world that seems determined to stifle her creativity and aspirations. She faces it all with a wisdom and wit that both delight and inspire.

"Allegra Maud Goldman is one of those rare delights, a novel of childhood . . . that is as wise and true as it is funny. . . . There is probably something for everybody in this short, funny book that had me laughing and crying to the last page."

—Ms. magazine

"One of the rare and precious portraits of the artist as a young girl."

—Tillie Olsen

"I remember reading Allegra Maud Goldman as a child. And I remember thinking even then that the novel was unusual for its mordant wit and unsentimental perspective on the Jewish family and Jewish girlhood. As only the best novels and memoirs do, this book brings to life a vanished time and place."

—Allegra Goodman

"Allegra Maud Goldman . . . is the epitome of a certain kind of precocity. Edith Konecky has the uncanny facility of making us feel we've been where Allegra is—and so we have, alas."

—Lynne Sharon Schwartz

"One of those bright, eye-catching things that come in small packages—Allegra Maud Goldman is a charming nudzh. Notice her."

—Kirkus Reviews

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