Folktale, historically rooted horror story, redemption parable, and the inspiration for Superman and other classic comic book superheroes: the centuries-old Jewish narrative of the golem has something for everyone. But readers would never guess it from Watts's (Good-bye Marianne
) somber retelling. Her narrator is Jacob, the young, underachieving son of Rabbi Judah Loew, the spiritual leader of the 16th-century Prague ghetto. Jacob spies on his father as the rabbi turns red clay into a ponderous, mute giant, then tags along as the golem protects the community from anti-Semitic violence. The central incident rises out of the “Blood Lie,” in which Jews were accused of making Passover matzo from the blood of Christian children. By all rights, this should be a page-turner—it even has moments of comedy, mostly rooted in the premise that the golem will take orders from anyone, but can only be stopped by its master. But the passive, peripheral, and somewhat whiny Jacob never coalesces into an intriguing narrator or reader surrogate. Shoemaker's charcoal sketches, scattered throughout, are technically handsome, but do little to evoke a sense of the perilous times. Ages 9–up. (Nov.)
