A Fantasy Work for Children about Medieval Jews, Muslims, and Christians

Set in 13th-century France, The Inquisitor’s Tale: Or, The Three Magical Children and Their Holy Dog, by Adam Gidwitz, tells the story of a young ex-monk of moorish ancestry, a peasant girl, and a Jewish boy—all with supernatural powers. This novel, Alan Verskin notes, is thus a rare example of children’s fiction with an explicitly Jewish character that is neither aimed primarily at a Jewish audience nor Holocaust-themed. Himself a medievalist who read the book to his own children, Verskin objects to its “heavy-handed moralizing about overcoming religious, racial, and sexist bigotry” and finds the numerous gratuitous historical inaccuracies “grating.” Yet halfway through, the plot shifts its focus to the burning of the Talmud in Paris in 1240, and Verskin discovered much to like about what follows. (Free registration may be required.)