Lewinson reflects on the ramifications of his divorce on his relationship with his children, his faith, and his worldview.

After 28 years of a marriage that “consisted of too little love and too much therapy,” Lewinson filed for divorce from his wife. Because he was an Orthodox Jew and a Talmudic scholar, Lewinson’s decision to file for divorce in the secular court system sent shock waves across his insular community in Monsey, New York, which traditionally handled family matters in rabbinical courts. Per his retelling of events, the acrimonious divorce proceedings were almost farcical; he describes his judge as “a bumbling vicious drunken idiot” in a courtroom full of “lazy court-appointed psychologists and sleazy lawyers.” The divorce would leave the author in “financial ruin” and estranged from his young daughter and his religious community. Blended with Lewinson’s vivid (and often uncomfortably graphic) depictions of his declining sex life and marriage is a broader critique of religion. A self-described “binge-drinking bad-boy-lover” who replaced his “lack of a mother’s love” with sex, alcohol, and sports cars, Lewinson would subsequently find purpose and solace in his Jewish faith—he went on to obtain a graduate degree in Talmudical research. His broken marriage, however, sparked a crisis of faith as he asked himself, “Why would God, who has free will, choose to create a world in which its inhabitants devour each other?” While the book centers on his own personal story, told nonlinearly in vignettes, much of the text focuses on his critiques of mainstream religion. He describes his Orthodox community as made up of “Taliban-Yentas” who scrutinize even the most minuscule actions, attire, and behavior within the context of their rigidly defined religious laws. He similarly lambastes Christianity as a faith that originated “from the ranks of ignorant Jews” who plagiarized the Old Testament when “they hastily wrote a sloppy New Testament.” Beyond religion, Lewinson shares his opinions on a myriad of issues from the history of slavery in America and the international diamond trade to J. Edgar Hoover’s pornography collection and Yasser Arafat’s sexual orientation.

The book is written in a stream-of-consciousness style, a rambling approach rife with tangential asides that take readers far from the titular emphasis on Lewinson’s estranged daughter. While this style effectively captures the author’s post-divorce state of emotional distress, it makes for a frustrating read that is exacerbated by a lack of organization. At more than 500 pages, the work eschews the hallmarks of structure, instead offering readers page after page of blocks of text without chapter divisions—only occasional glyphs that provide infrequent section breaks. The book reads like an extended rant, full of vulgarities and crass, sexually explicit descriptions of past lovers. There’s even a hyper-detailed, multi-paragraph commentary on the genitalia of Mary, the mother of Jesus, that will make even non-religious readers cringe. And while the memoir is introspective in terms of Lewinson’s questioning of his faith and past relationships, the author typically assigns blame to others. Lewinson can be irreverently funny, and he’s clearly learned in terms of Jewish history, Scripture, and law, but his memoir ultimately comes across as a litany of personal gripes.

A poorly structured, uncomfortably crude memoir that charts the fallout of a bitter divorce.

Children around the world may speak different languages, but pacifiers remain a cross-cultural item, according to this tale for toddlers.

Lewinson (Hands, 2015, etc.) opens the story in Mexico, where young Maria and her doll (muñeca) both suck on their chupones. Next, blond-haired, green-eyed Sarah from the United States shows how she can avoid eating her spaghetti by sucking on her “paci.” Swedish Niles takes a nap with his napp while dreaming of playing hide-and-seek (kurragömma). Each setting features a child, the word for pacifier in that kid’s language, and another word from the youngster’s culture. Lewinson and illustrator Griffin (Spacing Out!, 2015, etc.) feature boys and girls in similar proportion, though children with blond hair have a somewhat lopsided representation. Lewinson highlights nations worldwide, including Israel, Russia, Germany, Australia, Congo, Saudi Arabia, Japan, and India. The overall message of finding connections across the boundaries of geography and language rings clear, even for young lap readers, who are likely to see at least one child in the text who provides them with a mirror. The structure is easy for children to grasp, and the beautiful images, particularly the ones featuring a boy dreaming of flying on a magic carpet and a girl riding on an elephant, are appealing. But while the text tells readers that Niles is dreaming about hide-and-seek, the picture shows sheep jumping over a fence. In addition, Lewinson’s choice of spellings for non-English words is mystifying. He relies on phonetic spellings rather than depicting the actual words, which are likely to aid adults and very early readers in sounding out unfamiliar terms. Unfortunately, the text doesn’t show features of the languages, such as tildes and acute accents, making the words unrecognizable to many readers. Likewise, Griffin’s children, while wonderfully realistic and diverse, tend to be on the old side to be using pacifiers. German Simone, playing tag with her friends, looks like an early elementary student rather than a preschooler, and Irit from Israel is described in the text as a kindergartner. For parents trying to wean their children off pacifiers before they attend school, these examples are problematic.

A lovely, comforting, and wide-reaching tale about finding similarities in children regardless of their cultures, marred by some strange choices in language presentation and the ages of its cast.

A frustrated genie can’t fulfill the wish of an “already rich” man in this picture book from Lewinson (What Do You Call It?, 2016, etc.), illustrated by Nailon (Zen the Zebra, 2015, etc.).

A dark-skinned man discovers a magical bottle on the beach and releases the genie from within. The oversized, muscular djinn offers the man money, riches, world landmarks, tame white tigers, planets, and galaxies, and finally, in exasperation, “A coffee?” But each time, the man refuses, explaining that he’s already rich and doesn’t need those things. The man finally explains, after sending the genie back to his bottle, that he’s rich because he has a daughter. Nailon’s colorful illustrations are best when the genie looms large (sometimes really large) over the scene. Unfortunately, the man’s age is ambiguous until the end: his goatee and lithe form, dressed in shorts and a collared shirt, make him seem like a teenager. Also, although the text says he found a bottle, the drawings show a brass lamp. Those are minor quibbles, however, as Nailon’s illustrations are charming, combining textured, cartoonish images with stylized photos. Lewinson’s moral may appeal more to parents than children, but the depth of the father’s love will stick with young readers.

A solid twist on the genie story that reinforces the importance of family over material things.