Clarion Books (Hardcover), ISBN 0-618-15964-9
When a fire forces three generations of the Bernstein family (Zaida, Baba, their 13 children and their children's four children) to relocate from their Saskatchewan farmhouse to Winnipeg in 1910, Rebecca's life turns upside down. The small apartment that Zaida secures cannot house everyone, and the small wages the Bernsteins earn cannot feed them all. As Rebecca's seemingly irresponsible father seeks work, Rebecca must live apart from her relatives in one foster home, while sister Leah and brother Solomon reside in another home. As if separation from her beloved family doesn't deliver punishment enough, her Ukrainian foster family practices not Judaism, as she does, but Christianity!

The Kostaniuks provide ample food and clothing for Rebecca. But while Mrs. Kostaniuk and her 12-year-old daughter, Sophie, welcome Rebecca, Mr. Kostaniuk and his son, Sasha, do not. At school, Sasha constantly picks fights with Max and Sam, Rebecca's young uncles, and calls them "dirty Jews." Trying to maintain both pride in her heritage and a growing friendship with Sophie, Rebecca feels torn between her family and her friend. She longs for the past and cannot make sense of the future. The situation worsens when a group of Jewish girls befriend Rebecca at school and ostracize Sophie. Having now seen prejudice from many angles, Rebecca struggles with the decision to honor the beliefs of those around her or to form and enact her own. In the wake of yet another fire, Rebecca sees that "sparks fly upward," and hope exists, after all.

Sparks Fly Upwards springs from the author Carol Matas's own extensive family and its history. As a result, the novel sometimes staggers under the burden of too many characters, and at others comes across as gratuitous and somewhat preachy. Even so, this first-person narrative provides a worthwhile glimpse at the prejudice that Jews suffered prior to World War II, a fascinating look at the culture of Canadian Jewish immigrants, as well as one girl's remarkably intuitive thoughts about it all.

Lynne Remick

Lynne Marie Pisano is a freelance writer, poet, book reviewer, SCBWI Metro New York LI Critique Group Coordinator and Co-Chair of the Long Island Children's Writers and Illustrators. She lives in New York with her husband Michael, her son Kevin and a daughter named Kayla, and Dante, a Schipperke.

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