Review: The Peacock
The Peacock by Jennifer Tzivia MacLeod, illustrated by Jamie MacGibbon Orca Book Publishers, 2024 Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Sara Lesley Arnold Buy at Bookshop.org Through the lens of a young girl in Toronto grappling with an unwanted garden guest, The Peacock introduces young readers to the Jewish refugee crisis after World War II. Barbara’s father, a tailor, is overcome with a feeling of responsibility for displaced persons in Europe, and sets out across the sea to help Jews secure tailoring jobs to skirt around Canada’s impossibly restrictive immigration laws. Back at home, while her father is away and her brothers are at camp, the responsibility falls on Barbara herself to care for her mother, who, in addition to being grief-stricken from the news of the horrific treatment of Jews in Europe, is terrorized daily by the peacock who has mysteriously planted himself in their yard. Learning from her father’s example of taking action and keeping in mind his wise words, “It’s up to...