Ages 6-9. In a quiet story with just the right touch of sentimentality. Oberman beautifully evokes a sense of continuity across generations Enhancing his third-person narrative with a smattering of dialogue, he tells of the Jewish boy Adam growing up in a shtetl, whose life drastically changes when famine and chaos in old Russia force his parents to immigrate to America.
At parting. Adam's beloved grandfather gives the boy a gift. a prayer shawl ("my always prayer shawl"), which was presented to the grandfather by his grandfather, for whom Adam was named. Lewin's first paintings, in black and white, show the white-bearded grandfather in the shtetl, the soldiers with their guns, the tall buildings in America dramatically dwarfing Adam and his parents. Then, in one double-page spread that telescopes Adam's growing into manhood, the artwork leaps into glorious color.
While Oberman's controlled text capsulizes the passage of time in words, the color paintings show Adam the man proudly wearing his Russian grandfather's shawl, then Adam the grandfather, passing the shawl and what it represents on to his own young grandson. As good as any of Lewin's best work, the watercolors are abundantly detailed and wonderfully expressive (the grandfathers and grandsons are at once different and the same).
The pictures enrich the tranquil telling, which harks back to the biblical Adam, as it movingly depicts how memory and tradition add texture and richness to our lives - even as other things around us change.