The Silence of Malka

Gr 6 Up—A Jewish family fleeing pogroms in the late 1800s head to rural Argentina, an unfamiliar landscape for the urban European poor, where challenges and small pleasures abound. Their massive farming responsibilities demand more hands, and they fashion a golem, an automaton of Jewish lore, made of clay and set to its makers' purposes. In legend, golems often meet a destructive end, and this one is no exception—though new territory means different cultural clashes and different settings for reckless violence. The golem lurks around the periphery of a story of a family clinging to their identity while navigating a new world with little use for them, and about the native rural families whom their presence displaces. In emotive color, the narrative drifts through rich landscapes, detailed domestic moments, and buzzing urban environments denied to the struggling immigrants.