Village stories that deftly lift a curtain on a world of friendly humor and touching details of Jewish life.
A novel set in a small Jewish village chronicles an unlikely romance.
This latest book from Binder (The Zombie Cat, 2017, etc.) continues his stories about the village of Chelm “on the edge of the Black Forest, in a part of the world that was sometimes Poland, sometimes Russia, briefly Austria, and maybe Germany.” The author has related the fictional goings-on in this little village in five works. This sixth installment centers on the wisest man in Chelm, Rabbi Kibbitz, and an unexpected late-in-life romance he enjoys. The book opens with a note of hyperbolic wry humor that skillfully captures the tone of the whole volume. The good rabbi is officiating at the wedding of a young couple who have succumbed to the temptation to write their own vows. As those vows drone on and on, various members of the congregation drift off to sleep. When the couple are finally done with their pledges and married, they’re frozen in place. “They both made so many vows to each other,” Rabbi Kibbitz explains, “that they can’t move for fear of breaking their promises.” One of the most surprising marriages in the village turns out to be the rabbi’s own. He weds Mrs. Chaipul, “owner and operator of Chelm’s sole kosher restaurant, the village’s chief caterer, and the best wedding planner” within four days’ ride. She insists on being called Mrs. Chaipul even after their marriage (her first husband’s last name was Klammerdinger, so she’s a bit skittish). Their union is a happy one, gently and wonderfully portrayed by Binder. The slim book’s descriptions of small-town Jewish life glow with affection, including Rabbi Kibbitz’s irritation concerning his obligation to eat his wife’s tough-as-nails matzah balls (“After five minutes your jaws began to ache, and the villagers started to wonder whether Mrs. Chaipul’s family had all died of starvation or lockjaw”). In all of these engaging tales, the jokes and human pathos are expertly balanced.
Village stories that deftly lift a curtain on a world of friendly humor and touching details of Jewish life.Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-940060-29-3
Page Count: 122
Publisher: Light Publications
Review Posted Online: Sept. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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