Miriam's Secret

September 15, 2017
It's a wintry spring in 1930 when an 11-year-old Jewish girl gets a lesson in friendship, the Jewish holidays, and America.Miriam has always lived in Brooklyn, but now Papa and Mama are taking the long ship journey to escort family from the Old Country. For the time being, Miriam lives with her loving grandparents Bubby and Zayde on their farm in upstate New York. Instead of bialys and whitefish for breakfast, Miriam eats eggs she finds herself and warm milk "fresh from the cow." The hired men who hop off the freight train are nice, and Miriam can have one of the barn cat's kittens for her very own. Even her loneliness is abated when she meets the secret stranger hiding in the barn. Cissy, also 11, is the sister of one of the hired men. Joe doesn't want Cissy to be sent to an orphanage, so she rides the rails with him from job to job in secret. Miriam explains the festivals of Purim and Passover to Cissy while learning a holiday lesson from Cissy's friendship. The relationship between a white Jewish girl and a black girl from Mississippi is focused on Miriam's inner life and chance to be a savior. Aside from some religious metaphors, this is not an exploration of interracial or cross-class friendships. A warmhearted holiday tale successfully portrays an underrepresented corner of American Judaism--of African-American history, not so much. (author's note) (Historical fiction. 9-11)

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