Gaya’s Dawn

Gaya is a lovely seventh-grader who has cancer. She must undergo painful and exhausting treatment. When she loses her hair, she begins wearing a wig, which she is sure everyone at school notices. She becomes reclusive and untrusting, fearing her schoolmates’ ridicule, and allowing only her good friend Anat to support her in her time of need. Gaya does not understand why she is sick, and how she is to deal with her predicament. She converses with God to seek strength, with no results. One day, her father brings home Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning. The book teaches her that every trial life presents us has a hidden meaning, that it is an opportunity for us to search for our inner strength and improve ourselves. Inspired and encouraged, Gaya begins examining her life. She realizes that her illness has helped her overcome her vanity, strengthen her endurance and think of her parents. Gaya’s ordeal ends well. She is on her way to recovery. Perhaps her illness really was a gift, teaching her about herself, about the truly important things in life, and a whole lot about love—teenage young love and family love.

A life-affirming contemporary Israeli classic that over more than twenty years has been warming the hearts and souls of young readers and their parents.