Title:
Incantation
Author:
Alice Hoffman
Publisher: New York: Little Brown
Publication Date:
2006
Pages: 166p
ISBN:
0316010197
Summary/Review
This is a short novel
about a sixteen-year-old Jewish girl, Estrella, and her family, living in a
small town in Spain around the year 1500, during the time of the Spanish
Inquisition.
Estrella is living with
her widowed mother Abra. She lives in a house where she feels there are
secrets. Her family secretly practices the ancient wisdom called Kabbalah, does
not eat pork, and lights candles on Fridays. She feels there are secrets, as
she watches her neighbor being taken away to be judged guilt without a fair
trial or when she sees the burning of
books of a Jewish man who refuses to renounce his belief live.
As the heroine
discovers she is Jewish, she finds herself falling in love with Andres, cousin
of her best friend and neighbor Catalina. When Andres returns Estrella’s love,
her relationship to her best friend deteriorated.
When Estrella’s family
secret became public, she confronts a world she has never imagined. The
shocking persecution of the Jews, the realization of falling in love that also
ends her friendship with her best friend, evokes her sorrow and determination
to survive and confront the reality that she is a Maranno, a Jewish.
With themes of faith,
friendship, and persecutions, issues teens of every century could relate to,
the author’s talent of imagery shines. Hoffman’s first historical novel is
beautifully written, showing the magical realism of the everyday lives of women
in that particular time of history.
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