Black Bird, Blue Road

Nobody writes stubborn, smart, fiercely loyal, middle grade Jewish girls better than Sofiya Pasternak. Seriously. I dare you to find me a better example of a girl fighting against all odds for what she believes in than Ziva, protagonist of the historical MG novel Black Bird, Blue Road. 

Ziva is facing some pretty tremendous obstacles. Her brother, Pessah, is dying from leprosy. Although it is now curable, in the times of the Khazar empire, leprosy was a death sentence and lepers were sent away to live and die in isolated colonies to prevent them from spreading their disease to others. Ziva is determined to save Pessah from such a fate. Especially when she learns that Pessah has had a vision of the Malach Hamavet, the angel of death, that has come to claim him.

She is also an aspiring judge, a position largely reserved for men in the Khazar empire. While Ziva’s entire family has pretty much given up on both of these fronts, resigning themselves to sending Pessah to a leper colony and attempting to arrange a good match for Ziva, Ziva is undeterred. She is not going to watch her brother die and she is certainly not going to attend parties, wearing ridiculous Byzantine dresses, searching for her one true match so that she can settle down and give up her dreams. 

So what’s a girl in an ancient kingdom, best known for its starring role in Yehuda Halevi’s philosophical work “Kuzari“, to do? For Ziva the answer is team up with a Sheid to try and find a city where death literally cannot enter. Obviously. 

Ziva makes some pretty awful choices along the way, she’s only twelve after all, and she also learns a lot about her own internal prejudices. Most of all, she learns that there are no magical cures for the things that ail us both physically and spiritually, a lesson that is often overlooked in books featuring characters with disabilities. 

Ziva’s story is full of Jewish lore and legend but also the hustle and bustle of a kingdom long forgotten where Jews would graze their herds in the steppes and identify themselves based on the location of their origin. Readers will be pulled in by Ziva’s singular determination, but they will remain for the wonderfully researched traditions and folklore.

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E Broderick is a writer and speculative fiction enthusiast. When not writing she enjoys epic games of trivial pursuit and baking. She currently lives in the U.S. but is eagerly awaiting the day a sentient spaceship offers to take her traveling around the galaxy.