As Chicago prepares to celebrate the 1893 World’s Fair, a young Jewish boy named Alter Rosen suffers the loss of his best friend, Yakov. It turns out that Yakov is the latest victim of a killer targeting Jewish boys. Alter becomes possessed by his friend’s dybbuk, which threatens to take over his body completely. He reconnects with a dangerous boy from his past and together they work to find the killer. This is the plot of “The City Beautiful,” a 2021 young adult novel by Aden Polydoros that earned multiple recommendations for placement on JewishBoston’s summer reading list of books that tackle antisemitism and/or racism.

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