The Unfinished Corner

In this plot-driven story grounded in Jewish history, 12-year-old aspiring artist Miriam Feigenbaum, who is light-skinned and Jewish, inherits the biblical task of flushing evil from the world by completing the Unfinished Corner, a part of the universe that God left undone during creation. Heading to Washington five days before her Bat Mitzvah, Miriam and her friends—studious and devout Avi Feuerstein, compassionate David Faroukh, and confident Judith Espinoza, all winners of their Jewish school’s art contest—encounter a succession of Old Testament figures when the angel Ma’alchiel tasks the group with finding the biblical Moses’s sister, Miriam. Though the stops along Colman’s journey become repetitive, serving primarily as a vehicle to explore Jewish history, moving moments—particularly one when a distraught Avi asks why a mythical being didn’t stop the Holocaust—more than compensate. Artist Petrovicz’s angular linework portrays the ethnically diverse group in a variety of environments—synagogues, barren wastelands—and colorist Whitney Cogar’s work bursts with luminescence at key, dramatic moments. Individual characters and the depth of their bonds carry the story forward, the historical content punctuated by moments of sincere hilarity. Ages 8–13. (Oct.)