In their new pic­ture book, Jane Yolen and Maya Shleifer prove that despite the num­ber of children’s and young adult books that fea­ture golems, there is def­i­nite­ly room for more of this fig­ure from Jew­ish folklore.

Tra­di­tion­al­ly, the golem is a mys­te­ri­ous crea­ture who inter­venes when Jews are threat­ened but then dis­ap­pears sud­den­ly. In Too Many Golems, ten of these men-of-clay come to life when mis­tak­en­ly invoked by Abi, a boy who is strug­gling to both learn and fit in at Hebrew school. Like a band of shtark­ers, or tough guys, the golems help Abi achieve his goals and share in his joy.

Although Abi has good inten­tions, he often gets into trou­ble. He is eas­i­ly dis­tract­ed, espe­cial­ly when read­ing com­ic books. Goad­ed by class­mates into using a bad word, Abi has to con­tend with an angry teacher and frus­trat­ed par­ents. Out of des­per­a­tion, he appro­pri­ates a seem­ing­ly use­less old scroll from the syn­a­gogue base­ment, hop­ing that by look­ing at its Hebrew let­ters, he will be able to remem­ber them. But while Abi thinks he is recit­ing words ​“care­ful­ly, respect­ful­ly, per­fect­ly,” he is actu­al­ly assum­ing the pow­ers of the famous Rab­bi Judah Loew of Prague. A knock on the door loud enough to rat­tle the can­dle­sticks her­alds the arrival of not one but ten super­heroes, there to stand up for a young Jew in his time of need.

Regard­less of his abil­i­ty to focus at Hebrew school, Abi has actu­al­ly learned a core les­son of the Torah: his par­ents have taught him to wel­come strangers, just as the bib­li­cal pre­cept directs. ​“And what, Abi asked him­self, is stranger than a gang of golems?”

They cer­tain­ly make for unusu­al guests in Abi’s home. Shleifer depicts them as over­sized and awk­ward, dwarf­ing the liv­ing-room fur­ni­ture and refus­ing Abi’s offer of milk and cook­ies. But like the com­ic book char­ac­ters who inspire Abi, they use their pow­er for good, not evil. When Abi explains that he doesn’t need war­riors, they agree to drill him in Hebrew. With patience and prac­tice, the unin­spired stu­dent becomes an expert leyn­er, chant­i­ng the Torah por­tion per­fect­ly at his bar mitzvah.

Using pas­tel pen­cils and crayons, Shleifer has cre­at­ed illus­tra­tions that are so expres­sive they seem almost tan­gi­ble. Abi’s out­stretched arms let loose a stream of Hebrew let­ters that float through the air. The golems are chunky and pale, with wide mouths, tri­an­gu­lar noses, and relat­able emo­tions. Abi him­self changes from a timid boy immersed in comics to some­one in charge, as he points to the scroll taped to the wall and chal­lenges the golems to ful­fill their role.

If golems can trans­form from fight­ers to teach­ers, then chil­dren can also aspire to change. Yolen and Shleifer’s strik­ing sto­ry shows what can hap­pen when kind­ness and strength join forces.