Lovely and entertaining folklore and parables that can proudly stand beside others in their tradition.
Klein presents a collection of original Jewish parables for all ages, told in the tradition of rabbinic legends and folktales.
In “Yofiel,” one of the author’s contemporary rabbinic legends, archangels armed with colorful sticky notes flutter about and assign tasks among their brethren, ranging from stoking the Burning Bush to reminding geese which way to fly. Yofiel is an enthusiastic yet incompetent angel, not even to be trusted with a blade of grass, who nonetheless becomes the indispensable keeper of the Torah’s secrets. In “Jew,” a homeless man wipes away at the antisemitic graffiti with which a young boy has defaced the wall of a family-run shop; the swirls of his rag send the perpetrator and his classmate (who works there) into a world of glowing shields and laser rain, a living video game depicting crimes against Jews throughout the ages by Haman and the Nazis. In the title tale, another young boy sets off on a fantastical quest facing a giant and sea dragon— the only tools he will need to succeed are the modest hallmarks of Passover: a candle, a feather, and wooden spoon. The parables in this collection were inspired by the Torah, kabbalistic studies, and other Jewish teachings. The stories are short, yet deep and descriptive, with varied settings that span contemporary times, the forests and villages of European folklore, and the time of the Hebrew Bible. Approachable for adults yet told with children in mind, each story is full of wide-eyed curiosity and earnestness, along with comedy, light scares, and lessons on compassion, empathy, and acceptance of the marginalized or derided. Young minds may wonder, “How was Jonah’s journey for the whale?” or “What did children see during the Exodus?” These questions are enthusiastically explored, and each entry ends with simple yet insightful queries for the reader as well. Though primarily aimed at a Jewish audience, the book contains a small, helpful glossary of terms, and Klein’s approachable style and enthusiasm for storytelling will appeal to readers from all backgrounds.
Lovely and entertaining folklore and parables that can proudly stand beside others in their tradition.Pub Date: May 1, 2023
ISBN: 9780881233568
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Central Conference of American Rabbis Press
Review Posted Online: April 18, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Misogyny, classism, colorism, hypocrisy: begone! A fierce, fabulous, and very funny truth-teller cometh to take you down.
A rollicking satire of Black megachurch culture featuring an irresistible fireball of a protagonist.
Philyaw follows a much-lauded story collection, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies (2020), with a debut novel that reads as if she’s channeling the authentic voice of the biggest, baddest, most profoundly un-churchy church lady of all time. Married to Pastor David Freeman, Scharisse Freeman is the first lady of the 25,000-member Hope in Christ Baptist Church, a spiritual and business empire headquartered in Belleton, Georgia. We meet her backstage at the First Lady USA Pageant, an event she has been shut out of for years due to her rough background, the daughter of a teen mother who died young with no connection to the hierarchy of church lineage, a “rags-to-Rolex story,” as she puts it. And though a first lady is meant to epitomize the model of feminine subservience described in Proverbs 31, a Bible passage included at the front for the uninitiated, Scharisse could not be less interested in getting up while it is still night and preparing food or selecting wool and working with eager hands. She is a self-described “brand whore” and fashion diva who sees her wifely duty as keeping Pastor David busy in the bedroom and attending to the needs of her moody, hypercritical teenage daughter, Gabrielle. Yet this iconoclasm is belied by a burning need to win the approval of the holier-than-thou first lady clique, a project made even more difficult by secrets and scandals that erupt during the year leading up to the pageant. Scharisse is an irresistible character, more Prometheus than Proverbs 31, and readers will be rooting for her every step of the way, even as some of those steps are clearly faux pas. Philyaw’s vibrantly voicey tale will appeal to both insiders and outsiders of the culture it describes, a Crazy Rich Asians–style visit to a rarefied realm, but with much more hot sex. At 40, Scharisse is a woman deeply in touch with her physical needs. By the time she takes the stage at First Lady USA, she is also in touch with her soul.
Misogyny, classism, colorism, hypocrisy: begone! A fierce, fabulous, and very funny truth-teller cometh to take you down.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2026
ISBN: 9780063383074
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Mariner Books
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
The range and virtuosity of these stories make this Mosley’s most adventurous and, maybe, best book.
A grandmaster of the hard-boiled crime genre shifts gears to spin bittersweet and, at times, bizarre tales about bruised, sensitive souls in love and trouble.
In one of the 17 stories that make up this collection, a supporting character says: “People are so afraid of dying that they don’t even live the little bit of life they have.” She casually drops this gnomic observation as a way of breaking down a lead character’s resistance to smoking a cigarette. But her aphorism could apply to almost all the eponymous awkward Black men examined with dry wit and deep empathy by the versatile and prolific Mosley, who takes one of his occasional departures from detective fiction to illuminate the many ways Black men confound society’s expectations and even perplex themselves. There is, for instance, Rufus Coombs, the mailroom messenger in “Pet Fly,” who connects more easily with household pests than he does with the women who work in his building. Or Albert Roundhouse, of “Almost Alyce,” who loses the love of his life and falls into a welter of alcohol, vagrancy, and, ultimately, enlightenment. Perhaps most alienated of all is Michael Trey in “Between Storms,” who locks himself in his New York City apartment after being traumatized by a major storm and finds himself taken by the outside world as a prophet—not of doom, but, maybe, peace? Not all these awkward types are hapless or benign: The short, shy surgeon in “Cut, Cut, Cut” turns out to be something like a mad scientist out of H.G. Wells while “Showdown on the Hudson” is a saga about an authentic Black cowboy from Texas who’s not exactly a perfect fit for New York City but is soon compelled to do the right thing, Western-style. The tough-minded and tenderly observant Mosley style remains constant throughout these stories even as they display varied approaches from the gothic to the surreal.
The range and virtuosity of these stories make this Mosley’s most adventurous and, maybe, best book.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-8021-4956-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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