Dave at Night

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Dave at Night is a novel written by Gail Carson Levine and was published in 1999. The story is inspired by the author's father's experience as an orphan. It takes place in 1920's New York during the Harlem Renaissance.

[edit] Plot

Two young Jewish boys, named "Gideon the Genius" (older borther) and "Dave the Daredevil" (younger brother) by their father, grow up in New York during the 1920s. They play stickball and Dave frequently gets into trouble. When their father dies, Dave and Gideon are separated and Dave ends in the "Hebrew Home for Boys" (HHB, which Dave later nicknames "Hopeless House of Beggers" and "Hell Hole for Brats").

To escape the strict rules of the HHB, unappealing food, and constant bullying, Dave sneaks out the orphanage to explore the streets of Harlem, which turns out to be complete other world to his life in the HHB. Life is Harlem is filled with salons and speakeasies and crazy parties. Dave soon finds refuge from his dreary world at the HHB with Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen, who help inspire Dave's own artistic talents.

With his new friends, including a grandfatherly "gonif" ("somebody who fools people out of their money") and a young "colored" heiress who takes a shine to him, Dave begins to turn things around at the HHB.

The real life model for the "Hebrew Home for Boys" was the Hebrew Orphan Asylum of New York, which the author's father attended.