A Jewish Harriet Potter

Move over, Harry Potter at Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry, and make way for Dahlia Sherman at Camp Arava. Scholastic, Inc., the publisher that brought us the biggest-ever phenomenon in children’s literature, has released a mystical fantasy novel for preteen readers set at a Jewish sleep-away summer camp in rural Pennsylvania. … “The Path of Names,” by first-time novelist Ari Goelman, has 13-year-old aspiring magician Dahlia arriving at Arava reluctantly, her parents having insisted she attend a session at the camp — where her older brother Tom is a counselor and she’ll meet other Jewish kids — before going to magic camp later in the summer. [Ari Goelman is a New College of Florida alumnus.]