This exciting adventure stars a gay, Jewish tween who must team up with a demon from Jewish folklore to defeat evil monsters bent on triggering the Apocalypse.
Twelve-year-old Zach Darlington has a Jewish mother and a Christian father. Although his family only goes to temple on the High Holidays, his mother is proud of her Jewish heritage, exploring her genealogy and collecting lots of Judaica. When Zach and his younger sister Naomi find an old ring with a Star of David on it, they think it will make a great present for her. They soon discover, however, that the ring gives its wearer strange powers, not least of which is calling Ashmedai, King of Demons, who appears in the guise of a boy about Zach’s age.
Zach wants to use the ring to both get back at the bully who’s been harassing him and to impress his crush—but he must also deal with Ashmedai (“Ash”), who is connected to the ring in a way Zach doesn’t quite understand. In Jewish tradition, however, demons (or “shedim” in Hebrew) are not the evil creatures from hell that they are in the Christian tradition. They are, as Zach’s mom explains, “more ambiguous.” Indeed, Ashmedai is happy to help Zach deal with his everyday problems, although Zach finds himself having to rein in the unpredictable and impulsive demon and try to explain away his actions.
Eventually, though, Zach and Ash draw the attention of the local chapter of the Knights of the Apocalypse, a secret society intent awakening three mythic monsters and unleashing the end of times. Zach, Ash, Naomi, and Zach’s best friend Sandra must work together to defeat them and save the world. The action takes a little while to get going—the apocalyptic threat isn’t revealed until about halfway through—but it comes on strong at the end and Zach is an amusing narrator throughout.
I also appreciate that Zach is shown finding his own way to be gay. Before he came out, he tells us, he associated the word “gay” with Pride parades. “I didn’t like rainbows or face paint, so for a while, I tried convincing myself I couldn’t possibly be gay.” When he tells Sandra his feelings, however, “she duly informed me that I could be gay, just the mopey, nerdy kind.”
A few bits could have used better editing: “I leaped back as the lion pounced at me, raising the pole like a club,” makes it sound like the lion, not Zach, was wielding the pole. “Lame” is used several times derogatively, which feels ableist. (See Disability in Kidlit.) And in a editing error, the Hebrew characters on p. 137 are printed left to right, instead of correctly as right to left. (They transliterate to “Shabbat Kadosh,” or “Holy Shabbat.”)
Overall, though, fans of Rick Riordan’s mythology-based adventures will likely enjoy this Jewish-themed one, the first of a planned trilogy.
Zach and Ash are presumed White; Sandra is Latina.
