This Business with Elijah

Norman Ravvin’s novel Café des Westens won the Alberta Culture New
Fiction Award.

These stories appeared in a variety of little magazines, and the title
piece was nominated for the prestigious Journey Prize. To expand upon
this adult audience, the author and publisher have produced a
teacher’s guide designed to make the collection accessible to younger
readers. Canadian history, Jewish customs, and everyday family pressures
are the most common subjects dealt with in the guide’s questions and
activities for students.

Young readers may be able to relate to Oberman’s favorite character,
a youngster named Danny, who is often at odds with his parents and
peers, and who learns the ways of the world from an elderly neighbor who
is a storyteller, a natural wit, and the keeper of information about
Europe before World War II.

The best stories are those that focus most directly on Danny’s
frustration as the adult world proves impenetrable and tantalizingly out
of reach. Oberman has a knack for the initiation story, in which the
child finds himself in an embarrassing or challenging situation but
comes through it bearing a nugget of wisdom. Danny’s world is
small—just a few blocks of a Winnipeg neighborhood—but his
adventures point toward a wider, more complicated world yet to be
grasped.