Golemcrafters
by Emi Watanabe Cohen
November 12, 2024 Levine Querido
264 pages
Memory is a tricky thing. Two people may recall the same incident in wildly different fashion. Some of us selectively focus on the good or the bad. Over time, it becomes a wonder anyone can bear to remember anything at all. Which is a problem for Fay, the main character in Emi Watanabe Cohen’s thoughtful sophomore Middle Grade fantasy Golemcrafters.
Fay has grown up somewhat in her older brother Shiloh’s shadow. Her one former friend has joined the group of girls that tease her for not being Japanese enough because her father is Jewish – calling her names like Anne Frank and laughing at her Japanese pronunciation and curly hair. She does well in some subjects but not in others, and generally feels lost. Meanwhile, Shiloh is dealing with an antisemitic bully who has now started beating him up for reporting antisemitic graffiti. The school is less than helpful about any of this. So when their grandfather from NY shows up offering to teach them golem craft, the siblings are eager to go on this adventure together.
As it turn out, Fay has a gift for making Golems. As creatures built from words and memories pressed into clay, they come easily to Fay who is hyperlexic and has an easier time with Hebrew than Shiloh. Her days are filled with sculpting, but at night she and Shiloh travel through shared dreams to a fantasy universe. Delighted to have found their own version of Narnia, they are confused as to why everything always ends in destruction and murder in these dreams. They hope to use Fay’s Golems to save the day but quickly learn that this isn’t so simple. The fantasy world is actually ancestral memories, and you cannot change centuries of antisemitic incidents no matter how much you want to.
Shiloh finds himself in the awkward situation of coming in second to his little sister. Meanwhile, Fay has all this power that she is afraid to use. As the superior Golem crafter, she experiences her ancestors memories much more acutely than Shiloh and struggles with when to fight vs. when to hide. It’s a conflict familiar to countless generations of Jews who have argued over how to best combat antisemitism only to realize that step one should probably be to stop blaming the victims in the first place. There’s a line about how Jewish children are not supposed to be storybook heroes that really hits home.
Watanabe Cohen is facile with languages and the wordplay with both Japanese and Hebrew is delightful. Furthermore she brings some much appreciated humor to a difficult topic. The Passover seder depicted was particularly funny and comes at a time when Fay needs some joy in her life.
Golemcrafters was obviously written before this year of rising antisemitism, but it feels timely nonetheless. Jewish kids today could use Fay and Shiloh’s perspective, their non-Jewish peers will benefit from learning to step outside their own experiences, and everyone supremely needs the reminder that Jews don’t all look alike and come in a variety of shapes and sizes.
BookishlyJewish received an e-copy of this book from the publisher