Black Bird, Blue Road

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In this historical fantasy novel from Sydney Taylor Honor winner and National Jewish Book Award finalist Sofiya Pasternack, Ziva will do anything to save her twin brother Pesah from his illness—even face the Angel of Death himself.

Pesah has lived with leprosy for years, and the twins have spent most of that time working on a cure. Then Pesah has a vision: the Angel of Death will come for him on Rosh Hashanah, just one month away.

So Ziva takes her brother and runs away to find doctors who can cure him. But when they meet and accidentally free a half-demon boy, he suggests paying his debt by leading them to the fabled city of Luz, where no one ever dies—the one place Pesah will be safe.

They just need to run faster than the Angel of Death can fly...

Sofiya Pasternack is the author of the Sydney Taylor Honor winners Anya and the Dragon and Anya and the Nightingale. She is a nurse whose fondest childhood memories involve her pet goats wrecking the house. When she’s not at the hospital, she can be found enjoying Utah’s wild places.

 

Pasternack shows how Ziva’s love of justice drives her, while depicting a world in which spirits are manifest, healers come in many forms, and a bold girl can literally bargain with the Angel of Death. Tenderly rendering Ziva’s feelings of responsibility—including around Pesah’s physical care and amputating his infected fingers and toes—Pasternack imagines a rich, omen-filled journey that powerfully shows love and its limits. -Publishers Weekly (starred review) Pasternack’s story is rich in the rhythms, values, and deep magic of Jewish culture and life in the Turkic Jewish empire of Khazaria. It revels in an often overlooked mythology, deploying exciting fantasy elements with ease. More than simply an adventure, this is a story about grief and illness and arguing with the rules of the world, enduring and enjoying the living that happens between now and the end, threaded through with the profound, unshakeable love of two brave siblings. Propulsive, wise, and heartbreaking. -Kirkus Reviews (starred review) Pasternak's historical fantasy weaves Jewish mythology and traditions into this heroine's journey that asks readers to contemplate issues of life and death. Readers will be intrigued by the ravens that follow Pesah everywhere, the details of the city of Luz (where no one dies), and Pesah's vision that the Angel of Death will visit him on Rosh Hashanah. This works as an adventure, but it should also prompt discussions about the ethics of preserving life at all costs.  — Kay Weisman -Booklist (starred review)

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