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• 2021 Aesop Accolade

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9781541578265

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Tonti seems not to be afraid to mix genres. Readers who open this graphic novel to a random page might find a forbidden romance, a philosophical story about the delicacy of life, or an epic fight scene. Most of the stories are traditional Jewish folktales, but, disconcertingly, one chapter of the book is adapted from a bleak, cryptic section of Franz Kafka's The Trial. It's even more surprising when one of Kafka's characters shows up in the middle of an apparently unrelated fight sequence. But every sequence is inventive. Ben, one of the main characters, uses a cup-and-ball game to fight off attackers. And the two siblings at the heart of the story are protected by the 'Doughlem, ' a golem baked from flour and other household ingredients. Remarkably, the story only rarely feels episodic or disjointed. It's held together by a compelling, conventional fantasy plotline about the quest for the titular Book of Secrets. The artwork is less traditional. Perspective and anatomy are often distorted, as though the pictures had been drawn while the artist was looking at the page in a mirror. The character design is wonderfully odd, though. A pair of angels resembles the sea monkeys from ads in old comic books. Almost all of the human characters are White, though King Solomon and his daughter are light brown. Readers will be happily confounded by every secret in this book. -- Kirkus Reviews -- Journal Eight Jewish stories are woven together in a daring adventure tale. When Rose is helping her mother make challah, her Bubbe suddenly appears in a cloud of flour. Bubbe frantically chokes out that Rose and her twin brother Ben must find a package containing a secret book that can save her and their grandfather from an unknown threat. As the twins search for their missing grandparents, aided only by the mysterious book, a lantern, a bird, and their wits, they are pursued by a 'creepy sorceress' who wants the book. The stories they uncover in the book about the flying Ziz, a golem made of dough, the giant Og, the gatekeeper at a maze, a treasure-seeker who lives in a mushroom hut, the riddle of a maze provide clues to help them defeat the sorceress. As the mystery deepens, the siblings move back and forth between being in the stories and reading the stories and they encounter objects, people, and scenes from the stories. They learn that they must 'follow the Lamplighter's wise advice, slip past a guard into the maze, find and reunite with their grandparents, and learn why they have inherited the responsibility to protect the book and the Jewish people.' At the end, they learn Grandpa's story and understand how he inherited the secret book that he passes on to them to treasure and protect as he did. The stories almost vanished, but Rose and Ben understood their responsibility to inherit and pass down the stories to future generations, for the stories were now inside them. With artful, easily understood frames and vivid colors, the author/illustrator crafts an engaging read. The stories are taken from the Mishnah, Hasidic tales, Midrash, tales of the Ba'al Shem Tov, and a story by Kafka. A few of the stories seem unrelated to the main story and would benefit from being placed between reminders of the main story line, rather than following directly after each other, but the reader can understand, even without this assistance. -- Debbie Colodny, retired librarian, Cook Memorial Public Library District, Libertyville, IL; former owner Sefer, So Good; former member Sydney Taylor Book Award Committee, AJL -- Magazine

Tonti seems not to be afraid to mix genres. Readers who open this graphic novel to a random page might find a forbidden romance, a philosophical story about the delicacy of life, or an epic fight scene. Most of the stories are traditional Jewish folktales, but, disconcertingly, one chapter of the book is adapted from a bleak, cryptic section of Franz Kafka's The Trial. It's even more surprising when one of Kafka's characters shows up in the middle of an apparently unrelated fight sequence. But every sequence is inventive. Ben, one of the main characters, uses a cup-and-ball game to fight off attackers. And the two siblings at the heart of the story are protected by the 'Doughlem, ' a golem baked from flour and other household ingredients. Remarkably, the story only rarely feels episodic or disjointed. It's held together by a compelling, conventional fantasy plotline about the quest for the titular Book of Secrets. The artwork is less traditional. Perspective and anatomy are often distorted, as though the pictures had been drawn while the artist was looking at the page in a mirror. The character design is wonderfully odd, though. A pair of angels resembles the sea monkeys from ads in old comic books. Almost all of the human characters are White, though King Solomon and his daughter are light brown. Readers will be happily confounded by every secret in this book. -- Kirkus Reviews -- Journal Eight Jewish stories are woven together in a daring adventure tale. When Rose is helping her mother make challah, her Bubbe suddenly appears in a cloud of flour. Bubbe frantically chokes out that Rose and her twin brother Ben must find a package containing a secret book that can save her and their grandfather from an unknown threat. As the twins search for their missing grandparents, aided only by the mysterious book, a lantern, a bird, and their wits, they are pursued by a 'creepy sorceress' who wants the book. The stories they uncover in the book about the flying Ziz, a golem made of dough, the giant Og, the gatekeeper at a maze, a treasure-seeker who lives in a mushroom hut, the riddle of a maze provide clues to help them defeat the sorceress. As the mystery deepens, the siblings move back and forth between being in the stories and reading the stories and they encounter objects, people, and scenes from the stories. They learn that they must 'follow the Lamplighter's wise advice, slip past a guard into the maze, find and reunite with their grandparents, and learn why they have inherited the responsibility to protect the book and the Jewish people.' At the end, they learn Grandpa's story and understand how he inherited the secret book that he passes on to them to treasure and protect as he did. The stories almost vanished, but Rose and Ben understood their responsibility to inherit and pass down the stories to future generations, for the stories were now inside them. With artful, easily understood frames and vivid colors, the author/illustrator crafts an engaging read. The stories are taken from the Mishnah, Hasidic tales, Midrash, tales of the Ba'al Shem Tov, and a story by Kafka. A few of the stories seem unrelated to the main story and would benefit from being placed between reminders of the main story line, rather than following directly after each other, but the reader can understand, even without this assistance. -- Debbie Colodny, retired librarian, Cook Memorial Public Library District, Libertyville, IL; former owner Sefer, So Good; former member Sydney Taylor Book Award Committee, AJL -- Magazine The Book of Secrets is a graph-ic nov-el that tells the sto-ry of Jew-ish sib-lings Ben and Rose whose miss-ing Bubbe and Grand-pa leave them a mys-te-ri-ous book. They start read-ing the book, each chap-ter telling them a dif-fer-ent sto-ry from tra-di-tion-al Jew-ish folk-lore. As they read more of the sto-ries, the char-ac-ters seem to come to life, help-ing them unrav-el the mys-ter-ies of the Book of Secrets -- and where their grand-par-ents could be. The Book of Secrets tells mul-ti-ple sto-ries simul-ta-ne-ous-ly, work-ing each fable into the larg-er nar-ra-tive. Each sto-ry teach-es Ben and Rose an impor-tant les-son; in the sto-ry of King Solomon, the moral is that even wise grown-ups can be some-times be wrong; the sto-ry of Og reminds them of the impor-tance of work-ing togeth-er to achieve a goal; the Lamplighter's sto-ry edu-cates them about why life needs to encom-pass both light and darkness. The art-work con-sists of dark-er shades of bright col-ors, as if to say that, while this is a fun chil-dren's sto-ry, it car-ries some impor-tant themes. The style, par-tic-u-lar-ly the design of the tit-u-lar book, bears resem-blance to the pop-u-lar Dis-ney show Grav-i-ty Falls. The char-ac-ter illus-tra-tions, espe-cial-ly that of the Dough-lem (the Dough Golem), invite audi-ences of all ages to enjoy the pic-tures which, along with the nar-ra-tive, con-vey the sto-ries creatively. The Book of Secrets is high-ly rec-om-mend-ed and a great way to teach mid-dle graders about Jew-ish cul-ture. It blends leg-end with con-tem-po-rary fan-ta-sy, star-ring young chil-dren as the heroes. This graph-ic book cel-e-brates Jew-ish her-itage with each sto-ry it tells, and encour-ages its read-ers to do the same. -- Ricahrd C. Kraus, Jewish Book Council -- Website

Tonti seems not to be afraid to mix genres. Readers who open this graphic novel to a random page might find a forbidden romance, a philosophical story about the delicacy of life, or an epic fight scene. Most of the stories are traditional Jewish folktales, but, disconcertingly, one chapter of the book is adapted from a bleak, cryptic section of Franz Kafka's The Trial. It's even more surprising when one of Kafka's characters shows up in the middle of an apparently unrelated fight sequence. But every sequence is inventive. Ben, one of the main characters, uses a cup-and-ball game to fight off attackers. And the two siblings at the heart of the story are protected by the 'Doughlem, ' a golem baked from flour and other household ingredients. Remarkably, the story only rarely feels episodic or disjointed. It's held together by a compelling, conventional fantasy plotline about the quest for the titular Book of Secrets. The artwork is less traditional. Perspective and anatomy are often distorted, as though the pictures had been drawn while the artist was looking at the page in a mirror. The character design is wonderfully odd, though. A pair of angels resembles the sea monkeys from ads in old comic books. Almost all of the human characters are White, though King Solomon and his daughter are light brown. Readers will be happily confounded by every secret in this book. -- Kirkus Reviews -- Journal

Author Information

Mat Tonti is a teacher and an artist who strives to make art that is inspirational and educational, including comics, illustrations, and Ketubot. When not teaching, or making art, he can be found playing in the woods. Mat Tonti is a teacher and an artist who strives to make art that is inspirational and educational, including comics, illustrations, and Ketubot. When not teaching, or making art, he can be found playing in the woods.

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