Evie Steinberg’s fam­i­ly is plagued by insta­bil­i­ty. She is twelve years old, and she has nev­er lived in one place for more than a year, since her mother’s career in jour­nal­ism has repeat­ed­ly uproot­ed the fam­i­ly. Leah Stecher’s mid­dle-grade nov­el blends real­i­ty and fan­ta­sy in its por­trait of an anguished pre­teen. Equal­ly painful and less eas­i­ly explained than her mother’s domes­tic dis­rup­tions, Evies’ father is a ​“cryp­to­zo­ol­o­gist,” who has ded­i­cat­ed his life to search­ing for non-exis­tent crea­tures, like Big Foot, or the drag­on-like Shar­lie. On one expe­di­tion, Evie inad­ver­tent­ly pre­vent­ed him from tak­ing a pho­to of the lat­ter, adding guilt to her range of trou­bling emotions. 

One sus­tain­ing con­stant in Evie’s life is her Jew­ish sum­mer camp, Shir Shalom, and her friend­ship with her fel­low camper, Dara Freed­man. Dara’s moth­er is a rab­bi, and, in a notable depar­ture from sim­i­lar fig­ures in oth­er mid­dle-grade books, she is a puni­tive per­fec­tion­ist. She demands high achieve­ment from her daugh­ter, and she is inca­pable of empathiz­ing with her husband’s anx­i­ety dis­or­der. The two friends, each with par­ents who fail to ade­quate­ly under­stand their daugh­ters’ needs, offer each oth­er vital sup­port. When Evie’s moth­er final­ly lands a long-term posi­tion in Cal­i­for­nia, the change of cir­cum­stances seems promis­ing, espe­cial­ly because Dara and Evie will be going to the same school.

But the Dara whom Evie meets in Cal­i­for­nia is dif­fer­ent — she’s dis­hon­est, nasty, and cold toward her for­mer best friend. Evie can’t emo­tion­al­ly accept the change in Dara, and she devel­ops a super­nat­ur­al expla­na­tion for her meta­mor­pho­sis, involv­ing the golem of Jew­ish folk­lore. Stecher’s adap­ta­tion of this leg­end assumes artis­tic license, and Evie’s golem departs in sub­stan­tial ways from those in the tra­di­tion­al sto­ries. Oth­er mys­ti­cal Jew­ish lore, like that of dyb­buks, seems at play here, too. The por­trait of a child so anguished that she weaves an elab­o­rate tale to account for a friend’s betray­al is sad enough. The fact that the tale is root­ed in her own Jew­ish iden­ti­ty is even more poignant.

Evie’s grand­moth­er, Bubbe, lives near the Steinberg’s new home. If Rab­bi Freed­man embod­ies none of the ide­al qual­i­ties of either Jew­ish moth­er­hood or the rab­binate, Bubbe is also a response to stereo­types, but in a pos­i­tive way. She offers Evie sup­port and uncon­di­tion­al love, but with a real­is­tic assess­ment of her granddaughter’s mal­adap­tive response to dis­tress. Rab­bi Freedman’s speech at Dara’s opu­lent bat mitz­vah par­ty is spec­tac­u­lar­ly awful, a vir­tu­al cel­e­bra­tion of parental nar­cis­sism. In con­trast, Bubbe offers proof that adult author­i­ty fig­ures can gen­uine­ly pro­tect and guide the chil­dren who rely on them.

The novel’s res­o­lu­tion leaves some ambi­gu­i­ty about the fraud­u­lent nature of Mr. Steinberg’s career. A par­ent neglect­ing a child by pri­or­i­tiz­ing work over fam­i­ly is a com­mon, if sad, sit­u­a­tion. In Evie’s life, the neglect is even worse, because her father’s pre­oc­cu­pa­tion is so point­less­ly chaot­ic. For­tu­nate­ly, oth­er peo­ple in Evie’s life find the courage to step in — with­out the help of a golem or any oth­er myth­i­cal beings.