Shelf Employed reviews Hereville!

I am very far behind on linking to blogs that have mentioned Hereville! I’ll catch up someday.

Shelf Employed, a cleverly-named blog written by a children’s librarian, discovered Hereville because of the Sydney Taylor Award — but Hereville wasn’t what they expected.

I expected a heavy, perhaps historical fiction, story of the Jewish experience. What I found instead, was a modern, graphic novel, fairytale adventure, offering a prolonged peek into a very insular community – that of the Orthodox Jew. Through Mirka, the book’s lively and determined protagonist, the reader sees a young girl who, despite the tenets of her faith that keep her apart from secular and non-Orthodox society, is much like any other young girl – willful and curious, tempered with love for her family and friends, and a grudging respect for her elders.

I admire writers who can try to do things like the “story of the Jewish experience.” But boy, is that not something I’d ever attempt! I like my stories to have a much smaller scale than that.

Anyway, there’s much more to the review at Shelf Employed, but you need to go over there to read it. 🙂

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