A Telling Time

Lisa Arsenault is an elementary-school teacher in Ajax, Ontario.

The context of occupied Austria in 1939 is used by a grandmother to tell
the story of Purim to her granddaughter in the present time. She
recounts how, when she was a little girl, Nazi soldiers banged on the
door of the rabbi’s house where he was telling the story of Queen
Esther to the children. She asked the soldiers to allow the rabbi to
finish the tale before taking him away for questioning. The rabbi
concluded the story with the miraculous deliverance of the Jews from
their oppressors through the Queen’s intercession.

Differently sized type distinguishes the story told in the first person
by the grandmother from the Purim tale, allowing for ease of voice
transition when reading the book aloud. The full-colour illustrations,
with an evocative snowy-night backdrop to every scene and generally an
outsize clock indicating time ticking away, support the text. The two
timelines are tied together with the implicit possibility of a happy
ending, as in Purim—there’s a chance that the rabbi’s vanishing at
the conclusion of his tale is due to miraculous intervention, rather
than to being taken away by the soldiers.

This is an intriguing picture book. The parallel between the saving of
the Jews by Queen Esther and the possible salvation of the rabbi is
obviously the moral, but the concepts surrounding this theme are rather
sophisticated for a young reader. The double identity of Hadassah/Esther
must be explained, with an accompanying explanation of prejudice against
Jews, and the nature and role of the soldiers must also be addressed.
Words such as “fasting” must be defined and discussed. The
individual illustrations within the larger frames are very small and
complex and are often distractingly tilted, rendering their meaning in
relation to the text not immediately apparent. If the purpose of this
book is to reinforce and illustrate an already well-grounded primary
religious education, then this book is recommended. For a general
audience, however, it would not be a first-choice purchase.