Grades 5-8--An enticing title and book jacket will draw readers to this collection of 10 original short stories. Several have Holocaust themes, and others are about the loss of a loved one. Among them is a tale about a lonely ghost trying to lure a pre-Bat Mitzvah girl into the grave. In a few others, spirits from times of crisis in Jewish history interact with modern boys and girls. Each of the selections is accompanied by a ponderous black-and-white illustration and a biographical sketch of and short comment from the author. Readers hoping for a good scare may be disappointed. The ghosts and golems of the title are actually didactic devices used to propel plots and develop themes dealing with loss, conflict, change, and Jewish continuity. The stories are uneven in quality. Rivka Widerman's "The Ghost of Leah Levy" is taut and chilling while in others, a melodramatic style overwhelms fairly simple themes. The purpose of the collection is not to entertain but to edify Jewish adolescents. As such, it is closer to Sandy Asher's With All My Heart, with All My Mind: Thirteen Stories about Growing up Jewish (S & S, 1999) than it is to Jewish tales of the supernatural. Cleverly packaged, this book delivers something different from what the title and cover art suggest.
Linda R. Silver, Jewish Education Center of Cleveland, OH
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Gr. 4-6. The authors of these 10 new stories give readers a taste of Jewish culture, history, folklore, and spirit as they deliver an occasional shiver. In "The Ghost of Leah Levy," an early Jewish settler in South Dakota almost lures a lonely child into a fatal accident. In "Wings," Sergey's beloved grandpa keeps appearing until Sergey's recitation of the prayer for the dead releases the ghost. Other tales glimpse such venues as wartime Prague ("The Shadow of the Golem"), Jerusalem during the destruction of the Temple ("Jerusalem Tunnel"), and the revolt of the Maccabees ("Hanukkah Light"). Each selection opens with a wooden but darkly atmospheric picture and closes with the author's comments and a brief biography. The stories will be useful classroom discussion starters, but they'll create some mild chills, too; share them aloud, along with selections from Howard Schwartz's anthology Lilith's Cave: Jewish Tales of the Supernatural (1988) or, for older readers, Daniel Jaffe's collection With Signs and Wonders (2001). John Peters
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