Dear Mr. Dickens: A Picture Book ARC Review and Giveaway

I'm following my own advice, "If you want to write, READ!" Since I'm exploring writing picture book biographies, I recently read several of Nancy Churnin's excellent picture book biographies. When I saw that she had a new book coming out, I requested a review copy from Albert Whitman. Dear Mr. Dickens is illustrated by Bethany Stancliffe and a great curriculum resource for 4-8 year-old readers. 

REVIEW

The year was 1863 when Eliza Davis decided to write to Charles Dickens.  She was a Jewish reader, who like many of her fellow Englishmen, paid two pence for his weekly magazine, All the Year Round.

Eliza admired Mr. Dickens stories because they were filled with compassion.  

.... he used the power of his pen to help others. When he wrote about children forced to labor in workhouses, people demanded change. When his readers were moved to tears by tales of families struggling in desperate, dirty conditions, they gave what they could to charities. As did Eliza.

Eliza loved his stories until she read Oliver Twist and read about Fagin, the "old shriveled Jew," who taught Oliver to steal.  Each time Eliza read Dickens' reference to the Jew,  "the word heart hurt like a hammer" on her heart.

"England was already a difficult place for Jewish people in the 1860s...Eliza wasn't famous or powerful. But she had the same things that Charles Dickens had: A pen, paper, and something to say."

Eliza feared her letter would make things worse. In spite of her fears, she wrote that his portrayal encouraged a "vial prejudice" and that he needed to "atone for a great wrong."

What would the great Mr. Dickens think?

"He frowned as he picked up his pen and began his response."

He was not pleased and let Eliza know it! He wrote, "Any Jewish people who thought him unfair or unkind--and that included Eliza!--were not "sensible" or "just."

Eliza wrote back to him. In her second letter she wrote about his past, present, and future.

Months passed and Eliza didn't receive a response. Was Mr. Dickens angry?

Finally, chapters of his new novel, Our Mutual Friend, began to appear at newsstands. Eliza "thumbed through the pages, shaking when she realized he had indeed created another Jewish character. Had her fears come true?"

In fact, it was the opposite. Mr. Dickens created a Jewish character and named him Mr. Riah, after the Hebrew word, re'a which meant generous and loyal. 

Eliza read the part where Lizzie Hexam, a young woman Mr. Riah helps, says of the Jews: 

"I think there cannot be kinder people in the world."

Eliza's eyes filled with tears.

She sat down at her writing table and thanked Mr. Dickens for his great compliment to her and her people.

Eliza's letters had a profound impact on Charles Dickens. He published essays protesting prejudice and during Oliver Twist's reprinting he told his printer to substitute "Fagin" where he had written "the Jew"

In their last correspondence, Eliza sent him an English-Hebrew Bible and praised him for making amends. Dickens wrote back that he was glad she'd spoken up to make things right.

"Eliza was glad she'd spoken up too."

BACK MATTER and MORE INFORMATION

The Author's Note includes extensive background about the history of anti-semitism in England as well as more information about Dickens and Eliza.

 

For more backstory about why Nancy wrote this deeply personal book, please see Kathy Temean's blog. All the questions I would have asked Nancy are answered there!

Teachers: Nancy has a lot of materials on her website for you to use in your classroom. 

GIVEAWAY

To enter the giveaway for my ARC (uncorrected proof), please leave me a comment by 9 AM on Friday, December 3. Teachers or librarians: Tell me where you work and I'll enter your name twice. Continental U.S. addresses only.

PLEASE NOTE: YOU MUST LEAVE YOUR NAME AND EMAIL ADDRESS IF YOU ARE NEW TO MY BLOG.

Congratulations to Susan Rice who won THE MEANS THAT MAKES US STRANGERS from last week's blog. Funny thing--her daughter graduated with Christine Kindberg too!

For Two Thousand Years: A Review and Audio Book Giveaway

This literary masterpiece revives the ideological debates of the interwar period through the journal of a Romanian Jewish student caught between anti-Semitism and Zionism. Although he endures persistent threats just to attend lectures, he feels disconnected from his Jewish peers and questions whether their activism will be worth the cost. Spending his days walking the streets and his nights drinking and conversing with revolutionaries, zealots, and libertines, he remains isolated, even from the women he loves. From Bucharest to Paris, he strives to make peace with himself in an increasingly hostile world.  [Cover blurb]

I confess.

I don't always remember the book blurbs I read when I select books from the Tantor Audio catalog. 

As a result, when I began listening to For Two Thousand Years I was confused. Without dates, cities, or countries marking the sections, I had trouble following the stream of consciousness writing--I had forgotten that this was Mihail Sebastian's journal. On top of that, add the unfamiliar Romanian names and lack of context clues, and it took me awhile to figure out that when the book opens Sebastian is a law student in Bucharist. 

Mihail Sebastian
1907-1945

Having said that, if you are interested in what it was like to be an intelligent Romanian Jew after World War I in the midst of virulent Anti-semitism and Zionism--then this is a book for you. 

Sebastian waxes philosophical about himself and his own writing; God and Judaism; his beloved country of Romania; women, his peers, his professors, and family; politics, Communism and Marxism; the law and architecture (his second area of study). Below are some of his musings; please keep in mind that I did my best to quote the book accurately. 

• When he observes other Jews who are beaten he tells himself "If I cry, I am lost. I don't want to die of shame."
• He has friends who fight for the right to be a Jew. "I'm never going to be a revolutionary. I'm not the tough kind."
• "I belong to a race that can't shut up."
• "One day we may make peace with the anti-semites but when will we make peace with ourselves?"
• Margot is the woman he loved but let go. "My big ethereal questions are put aside by her living, personal meanings."
• He questions the Zionists. "Are Zionists going to work with pick axes an act of heroism or desperation?"  "What are you going to do with the indigenous Arabs who have the right to a natural death, rather than an abrupt one by Zionist extremism?" (this sentiment reminded me of Blood Brothers).
• His grandmother dies and he wishes she would have embraced it and died more easily. "We die in despair--our last chance to be at peace and be saved." He wonders if mourning is indulgence.
• He comments on his own journal and sees it as folly and his own desire to feel superior to others. 
• "I have never had a conversation with someone without wondering if they know I'm a Jew and if they'd forgive me or not."
• A Zionist friend leaves for Israel and Sebastian muses, "Two thousand years can't be overcome by leaving for somewhere...Only rarely through this history of warfare, victories, and kingdoms, does light pierce the mist. Is it possible to build a new history from such material?"
• He remembers that as a youth he was assigned to a "special regime" for Jews on guard duty. "This made me feel as if Romania was not my Fatherland. That assignment erased two centuries of history." He did not want to sink into despair or martyrdom as he struggled to love that which he was not allowed to love. "I can't cease being a Jew. But I also will never cease to be from the land of the Danube."

According to Wikipedia, Sebastian first published a novel titled, "For a Thousand Years" in 1934. He was hit by a truck and died in 1945. His journal was discovered and published in 1996. As I listened I wondered if he ever imagined that his personal journal would be published and read around the world. 

This book is aptly narrated by Simon Vane. You can listen to an audio file here. Leave me a comment by November 17 if you wish to enter this giveaway. It may be the perfect gift for your favorite historian. PLEASE leave your email address if you think I might not have it.