Jewish Life Digital Edition September 2015 | Page 34

feature

Around the world
From librarian to best-selling children’s
author I By Chandrea Serebro

In the series,
you’ll meet many
fascinating Jewish
girls from the past,
and Miriam
transports you into
their world and
their time period…
Times and places
may change, but
being a Jewish girl,
say Miriam and her
characters, is
always something to
celebrate.
I love meeting people who are actually living their childhood dreams. For Miriam
Walfish, it was the dream of becoming a
writer. “I loved to read and I used to write
stories and poems. But, to me, writers
were ‘famous’. How could I ever be like
one of them? And so, I settled on the next
best thing – working with books all day.”
Miriam became a librarian, working at a
Jewish girls’ school for many years in Toronto, where she is from. Ironically, it was
this move that would become the catalyst
to making her childhood dream come true.
“Many of the girls at school were voracious
readers, and one of their favourite books
was The Little Princess, the much-loved
classic by Frances Hodgson Burnett set in
Victorian England. I couldn’t seem to keep
it on the shelves long enough before it was

30 JEWISH LIFE n ISSUE 88

whisked away by the next girl, and over
the years, I ordered multiple copies to satisfy the demand. One day, it occurred to
me. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if such a
book existed, but the main character was a
Jewish girl – a girl just like the girls who
visited my library? And then something
else occurred to me. Maybe I could actually
write it!”
Miriam set out to write a series of books
about Jewish girls, in different places and
different time periods, with changing
struggles and triumphs. In the series,
you’ll meet many fascinating Jewish girls
from the past, and Miriam transports you
into their world and their time period. She
paints such vivid pictures that you almost
feel as if you are Penina Mendes, a Jewish
girl growing up in London, England in the

1840s, or Liba Miller, a Jewish girl from
Kelm, Lithuania, who moves to Oudtshoorn, South Africa in the year 1910.
Times and places may change, but being a
Jewish girl, say Miriam and her characters,
is always something to celebrate. “I believe
it is important for Jewish children to have
an appreciation of our past, so that they
may feel part of our present and our future. Each Jew is part of a vibrant story
comprised of an incalculable number of
travels, trials, achievements and accomplishments. I want my readers to feel a
sense of pride about being part of this story – and of belonging to our people. It’s my
hope that my books play a small part in instilling this sense of pride.”
“I always tell students to ‘write about
what interests you’. This partly explains
why I write Jewish historical fiction. I
have an MA in Jewish history, and have
always been drawn to the subject.”
Being a history buff is one thing, but
just how does Miriam decide where, and
even when, to take her characters? “It’s
hard to explain what initially draws me to
a specific setting or particular period of
time. Usually it’s a combination of things
I have recently read or heard about, a conversation I may have just had, or a recent
experience.” But South Africa in the early
1900s, where did that come from? “One
summer a few years ago, in the process of
my doing research for the Tova Bloom series, which is set in colonial America, my
family and I visited Colonial Williamsburg, in Virginia. We stayed at a hotel
that could most kindly be described as
‘rustic’ and the staff at the front desk as
‘relaxed’. I started to think about how
much fun it would be to place a girl in the
‘Jewish Girls Around the World’ series in
such a setting. When I returned home I
began reading about Jewish hoteliers and
innkeepers. I learned that a number of
Jewish immigrants to South Africa had
become innkeepers. I also learned that

photograph: Hudson Taylor Photography Toronto

with Miriam Walfish