Miriam

This finely wrought first novel explores the equivocal experience of growing up female in a strongly patriarchal Jewish family. Miriam has always felt a kinship with her younger brother, Moshe, despite the preferential treatment he receives from her parents. She derives peace from the rituals of her religion in spite of her emerging questions about its tenets and its view of women as inferior citizens. These opposing sentiments shape Miriam's development in this coming-of-age story that includes her conflicts with friends and family, her need to come to terms with Moshe's sudden death and, by the end, her burgeoning independence. Rosofsky's first-person narrative remarkably represents events precisely as a child might perceive them. Accurately rendered are both the naive, incomplete perceptions of her protagonist at age four and the increasingly analytical, complex observations of Miriam as an adolescent. Because this novel asks difficult questions and resists easy answers, it accumulates a quiet but compelling force. A Charlotte Zolotow Book. Ages 12-up. (August)