Review: Mendel the Mess-Up
Mendel the Mess-Up by Terry LaBan Holiday House, 2024 Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Rachel Aronowitz Buy at Bookshop.org Twelve year old Mendel is known in his shtetl as "Mendel the Mess-Up" because everything he does turns into a disaster, whether he is at school or helping his mother around the house. When Cossacks invade the town and loot and burn everything, Mendel must turn this weakness into his greatest strength and reverse the curse that was cast on him at birth to try and save his town. This graphic novel is drawn in an old fashioned, humorous, and colorful comics style and is fast paced with an enjoyable story. Readers will be rooting for Mendel and enjoy his transition from Mendel the Mess-Up to Mendel the Amazing! The setting of this graphic novel is a fantasy version of an Eastern European shetl or Jewish village, which is humorous and has some authentic aspects like the family having Shabbat dinner, going to synagogue, going to school to study Torah, and th...