Black Bird, Blue Road

Starred review from July 25, 2022
In this dazzling historical fantasy, Pasternack (the Anya and the Dragon duology) tells of a tender sibling bond set in the little-known medieval Jewish empire of Khazaria. In the city of Atil, newly 12-year-old Ziva bat Leah is desperate to keep her brilliant, beloved twin brother, Pesah, from dying of leprosy. Inventive Pesah is kept in a house of his own on the Jewish family’s property, but when the siblings’ doctor uncle recommends that Pesah be sent to a far-flung colony, Ziva packs the siblings up and hits the road, hoping to find a cure. They soon meet up with a half-sheydim boy with whom they travel, but they’re racing against time, and the long journey is shadowed quite literally by Malach
hamavet—the Angel of Death himself. Pasternack shows how Ziva’s love of justice drives her, while depicting a world in which spirits are manifest, healers come in many forms, and a bold girl can literally bargain with the Angel of Death. Tenderly rendering Ziva’s feelings of responsibility—including around Pesah’s physical care and amputating his infected fingers and toes—Pasternack imagines a rich, omen-filled journey that powerfully shows love and its limits. A contextualizing afterword and glossary conclude. Ages 8–12. Agent: Rena Rossner, Deborah Harris Agency.

August 1, 2022
Grades 4-6 Twelve-year-old Ziva bet Leah and her twin, Pesah, are growing up in eleventh-century Khazar (an ancient Jewish empire located in present day Ukraine) where their father is a judge. Because Pesah suffers from Hansen's disease (leprosy), his parents have decided to send him away, prompting Ziva and Pesah to run away in search of a cure. Their journey is perilous; they are kidnapped and encounter magical sheydim, the Angel of Death, and a Milcham (phoenixlike bird), but throughout, Ziva remains determined to save her brother's life. Pasternak's historical fantasy weaves Jewish mythology and traditions into this heroine's journey that asks readers to contemplate issues of life and death. Readers will be intrigued by the ravens that follow Pesah everywhere, the details of the city of Luz (where no one dies), and Pesah's vision that the Angel of Death will visit him on Rosh Hashanah. This works as an adventure, but it should also prompt discussions about the ethics of preserving life at all costs.

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Starred review from September 1, 2022
In the Jewish empire of Khazaria, twelve-year-old Ziva is the only one willing to go near her twin brother, Pesah, who has leprosy (with symptoms described in vivid detail, as are the amputations Ziva performs). A vision Pesah shares with Ziva prompts her to take him on a quest to Byzantium to find a cure, or fight the Angel of Death, or both. The twins encounter figures from Jewish folklore, notably a sheyd (demon) and the aforementioned angel, presented as rounded characters who discuss and debate the nature of mortality with Ziva as she struggles to accept her impending loss with much more fury than Pesah himself has. Pasternack (Anya and the Dragon) writes with a storyteller's cadence without sacrificing liveliness, keeping emotions front and center ("She'd jab the Angel of Death in every single one of its eyeballs if that meant keeping Pesah safe"). Back matter includes a glossary and an afterword that discusses Khazaria, "for the most part...faded from memory," and how even elements of this story beyond the obvious fantasy ones are "just my imagining. And who knows? Maybe, twelve hundred years ago, a girl and her brother really did meet a demon and resist the Angel of Death on the steppe." Ziva and her community (anachronistically) consider her a responsible bat mitzvah now that she's twelve, and her stubborn insistence on taking on far too much is believable and affecting. Shoshana Flax

(Copyright 2022 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

September 1, 2022
In the Jewish empire of Khazaria, twelve-year-old Ziva is the only one willing to go near her twin brother, Pesah, who has leprosy (with symptoms described in vivid detail, as are the amputations Ziva performs). A vision Pesah shares with Ziva prompts her to take him on a quest to Byzantium to find a cure, or fight the Angel of Death, or both. The twins encounter figures from Jewish folklore, notably a sheyd (demon) and the aforementioned angel, presented as rounded characters who discuss and debate the nature of mortality with Ziva as she struggles to accept her impending loss with much more fury than Pesah himself has. Pasternack (Anya and the Dragon) writes with a storyteller's cadence without sacrificing liveliness, keeping emotions front and center ("She'd jab the Angel of Death in every single one of its eyeballs if that meant keeping Pesah safe"). Back matter includes a glossary and an afterword that discusses Khazaria, "for the most part...faded from memory," and how even elements of this story beyond the obvious fantasy ones are "just my imagining. And who knows? Maybe, twelve hundred years ago, a girl and her brother really did meet a demon and resist the Angel of Death on the steppe." Ziva and her community (anachronistically) consider her a responsible bat mitzvah now that she's twelve, and her stubborn insistence on taking on far too much is believable and affecting. Shoshana Flax

(Copyright 2022 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

Starred review from July 1, 2022
For years Ziva bat Leah's quest to cure her twin brother Pesah's leprosy has consumed their lives. When his health worsens, their parents arrange for him to be taken to a colony. But after Pesah has a celestial vision at their birthday party indicating that he will die on Rosh Hashanah, Ziva decides they must run away. Along with Almas, a sheydim, or demon, she rescues, they travel to the city of Luz, the only place the Angel of Death can't go. Pasternack's story is rich in the rhythms, values, and deep magic of Jewish culture and life in the Turkic Jewish empire of Khazaria. It revels in an often overlooked mythology, deploying exciting fantasy elements with ease. Ziva struggles with her fiery nature--stubbornness that is also an intense desire for justice. Her single-minded focus on saving Pesah blinkers her to the inevitability of death and the complexities of both their own fears and needs as she comes to understand them. Pesah is brilliant and gentle, kindhearted Almas faces prejudice for his demon nature, and the three form a charming traveling trio even amid fear and pain. More than simply an adventure, this is a story about grief and illness and arguing with the rules of the world, enduring and enjoying the living that happens between now and the end, threaded through with the profound, unshakeable love of two brave siblings. Propulsive, wise, and heartbreaking. (afterword, glossary) (Historical fantasy. 9-12)

COPYRIGHT(2022) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

July 1, 2022
In the Jewish empire of Khazaria, twelve-year-old Ziva is the only one willing to go near her twin brother, Pesah, who has leprosy (with symptoms described in vivid detail, as are the amputations Ziva performs). A vision Pesah shares with Ziva prompts her to take him on a quest to Byzantium to find a cure, or fight the Angel of Death, or both. The twins encounter figures from Jewish folklore, notably a sheyd (demon) and the aforementioned angel, presented as rounded characters who discuss and debate the nature of mortality with Ziva as she struggles to accept her impending loss with much more fury than Pesah himself has. Pasternack (Anya and the Dragon) writes with a storyteller's cadence without sacrificing liveliness, keeping emotions front and center ("She'd jab the Angel of Death in every single one of its eyeballs if that meant keeping Pesah safe"). Back matter includes a glossary and an afterword that discusses Khazaria, "for the most part...faded from memory," and how even elements of this story beyond the obvious fantasy ones are "just my imagining. And who knows? Maybe, twelve hundred years ago, a girl and her brother really did meet a demon and resist the Angel of Death on the steppe." Ziva and her community (anachronistically) consider her a responsible bat mitzvah now that she's twelve, and her stubborn insistence on taking on far too much is believable and affecting.

(Copyright 2022 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)