Purim as a telling time

JUDITH SALTMAN

One of a new wave of sophisticated picture books for older children, teenagers and adults, A Telling Time is a brilliant interpretation of the Purim story and its lasting, powerful metaphor for Jewish courage and survival in the face of persecution.

The multi-layered narrative has three threads that weave together a fable of three distinct time periods – the ancient time of Esther's courage; the threatening fascist Vienna in 1939; and a moment in our contemporary world. In a story within a story within a story, a modern grandmother celebrating Purim with her granddaughter shares her memory of a Purim of her childhood, when a rabbi telling a group of children the story of Esther escapes a sudden, frightening Nazi arrest, perhaps through the grace and humanizing power of storytelling, perhaps through a miracle.

With the tale of Esther at the centre, the threads intersect in the act of storytelling, of communicating Jewish history, courage and hope. Each time period is a "telling time," a central historical moment of clarity and action. Each historical period has a tale to tell – preparing the next generation of children to face the world with courage and compassion.

The grace and strength of Irene Watts' story is extended into a complex visual experience through the remarkable art of Kathryn Shoemaker. Created for the older child, ages eight and up, Shoemaker's visually literate gouache paintings evoke the three historical time frames and convey the emotional underpinnings of the story. Traditional Esther's tale unfolds with imagery recalling ancient Jewish art and Persian miniatures. The images of wartime Vienna incorporate subtle icons of the Holcaust: tiny images of lost shoes, suitcases, flames, Magen Davids, clocks witnessing the telling times and barbed wire. The white purity of the Viennese snowy night and the small, colored figures of the children in their Purim costumes, are threatened by a flickering orange of fire and framed by black designs that suggest bars of oppression and a history of resistance. The warmth of the contemporary grandmother's window looking out to another snowy night conveys her love of her grandchild and the survival of a people.

Judith Saltman is associate professor of the school of library, archival and information studies, University of British Columbia.

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