I wanted to like this book. I just couldn’t get into it, and I don’t really have a good reason why that’s the case. Its well written. It just didn’t grab my attention. It might be because most of this book is really sad, and I tend to not enjoy sad stories.

Or, it could be because I had nothing in common with any of the characters. I don’t really know. The story is from the point of view of Michael, an 11 year old Irish Catholic kid, growing up in Brooklyn in the late 1940’s. Michael’s dad died in “The War”, and Michael’s mom works a lot. Michael hangs out with other Catholic kids in the neighborhood, and plays baseball, and goes to church, where Michael is an altar boy. Most of this book is a snapshot of what it would have been like to grow up in Brooklyn in a mostly Catholic neighborhood during those years. Hamill also captures perfectly the way that many pre-teenagers think in Michael’s thoughts. Everything is either black, or white, either good, or evil. Michael spends most of the book trying to figure things out, and he also is becoming very passionate about what he believes.

One day, Michael is heading out to church early on a Saturday, to be an altar boy, and there is a huge snowstorm! Michael struggles through it, and on the way, notices that the Rabbi from the local synagogue is calling to him. The Rabbi needs a Shabbos Goy to turn the lights on for him, since he can’t do anything that is considered to be work on that day. Michael goes to help him, and this leads into a friendship between Michael and the Rabbi. Michael teaches the Rabbi English and about Baseball. Both are very interested in the new career of Jackie Robinson, who, since he is Black, is the center of much controversy. The Rabbi teaches Michael Yiddish, and all about Prague, where he was from, and about Jewish traditions and mythology. One of the things that captures Michaels attention is the story of the Golem.

There are some bad “kids” in the neighborhood. Well, more like teenagers, really. A “Gang” in the 1950’s sense of the word. The ringleader beats up a man who owns the candy store, and Michael and his friends are witnesses. Michael ends up being very afraid, because he does not want to tell the cops what he saw, and be a “rat” or a “squealer” (Something his Irish mother has told him is a very bad thing), but at the same time, he learns from the Rabbi that saying nothing about a crime is as bad as the crime itself. He is torn up about this for most of the book.

From there, things get worse and worse. Bad things keep happening. Things get more and more violent, and nothing seems to be able to stop it from happening. The cops aren’t helping, and Michael can’t talk to them about the many things he has seen. Michael, towards the end, in an act of faith and desperation, attempts to raise the Golem, who alone, he believes, can make things right again. I was suprized to read that, and even more surprized by the outcome of the story. The last part of the book made dragging through the rest of it more worth it. It is a great ending. I just wish the rest of the story was as enthralling.