Works by
D. Dina Friedman
(Writer)

• Playing Dad's Song (2006)
  Eleven-year old Gus Moskowitz isn’t too thrilled when his mom comes home with an oboe and the news that she's arranged for him to take lessons with a retired symphony musician. “Maybe you can learn to compose,” she says, trying to convince him. But what Gus wants to compose isn’t music—it’s a different version of his life: a life without Ivan the Terrible, who taunts him every day at middle school; a life without his older sister Liza, argument wizard extraordinaire and the shoo-in star of every school play. Most of all, in Gus’s life the way he’d like to compose it, September 11th would have never happened and his dad would still be alive, singing in the subways, and picking him up on Wednesday nights, the way he always did, flinging open the door and belting, “The Phantom of the Opera is here!”
  
  It’s an accident that gets Gus to consider trying out for Captain Hook in the upcoming school production of Peter Pan. After buying an eye patch to cover up another run-in with Ivan the Terrible, he’s got to give his mom some excuse. But then he remembers that his dad, a struggling actor, had always liked playing bad guys. Dad believed most people didn’t play villains with enough heart. If Gus could play Captain Hook with the right kind of heart, maybe he could bring his father back somehow. Maybe through acting, he’d finally be able to feel his father inside him.
  
  But there’s one problem.
  
  Gus has stage fright. Terrible stage fright. He can’t even do his class presentation. How is he ever going to make it through an audition?
  
  With the help of his sister, Liza, his oboe teacher, Mr. M., and the nameless neighborhood dog tied up in the yard by the edge of Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal, Gus learns some valuable lessons about auditioning, composing and life.
  
  Ages 9-12.

• Escaping into the Night  (2006)
  Halina Rudowski is on the run. When the Polish ghetto where she lives is liquidated, she narrowly escapes, but her mother is not as lucky. Along with her friend, Batya, Halina makes her way to a secret encampment in the woods where Jews survive by living underground. As the group struggles for food, handles infighting, and attempts to protect themselves from the advancing German army, Halina must face the reality of life without her mother.
  
  Based on historical events, this gripping tale sheds light on a little-known aspect of the holocaust, the underground forest encampments that saved several thousand Jews from the Nazis.

See also: Shel Horowitz (Husband)