Book finds currency in prophet's story

Next week, Jewish families will symbolically invite the prophet Elijah to their Passover seders.

Children's storyteller Sydelle Pearl wrote five original stories -- two involving Passover, three about other holy days -- in which this seminal biblical figure performs acts of charity for people in need. Her book, "Elijah's Tears: Stories for the Jewish Holidays" (Pelican Publishing Co.), has recently been reissued after going out of print.

Pearl, who is from Brookline, believes a book of religious values is even more important for children today than when hers was first published in the 1990s, given the role of religious intolerance in events like the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Her website, www.storypearls.com, includes a teachers' guide and children's writings about acts of kindness in their own lives.

Why does Elijah touch you so?

This is a figure that comes when people need him most, and there's something very moving about that. Although he appears in the New Testament and he also appears in the Koran, in Jewish folklore he's embraced as a figure who comes when people are most in need.

Was there anything in your own childhood or life experience that shaped your view of Passover?

I've had an eclectic Jewish background and stored all that in my head and heart. The virtues in these stories have to do with the way I perceive this character of Elijah. The people to whom he appears are often kind, pious, poor people who are then rewarded. He is usually in disguise when he visits people.

We cannot understand the mysteries of this world, why things happen. Stories have different levels inside of them. So does life itself. And the idea of someone who is not quite who the people to whom he is appearing think he is -- things are not what they seem -- is so true, isn't it? This is the core of what stories are all about.

Why do you exercise your muse writing for children?

I have spent a lot of time working with children. I do not have children of my own, but I have worked as a teacher, children's librarian, storyteller. So I have a feeling for that audience, and a great affection. There is a way you can get to the core of things for a child audience. I don't think that it is writing down at all. A good story is a good story and has different levels, so an adult will be able to stick with it, whether they are reading it aloud or the child is reading it to them.

What were your favorite books growing up that dealt with religious or spiritual topics?

I think I was 11 or 12 and I read "The Chosen." I will always remember what that experience was like. My father and I used to go to house [yard] sales, and we looked a lot at the books. I happened to discover Chaim Potok's "The Chosen" on a pile. I read it and thought the main character should have been Chaim himself, because I thought he was writing about himself. I remember reading "The Diary of Anne Frank," and that made a tremendous impression.

To what degree must you be cognizant, when you write, of whether a child is from a Reform or Conservative or Orthodox home?

I don't think it's a good idea to be thinking of questions like that when one is writing. You may not be writing what you need to be writing. That's a sort of censorship, if you ask yourself too many questions. The truth is, we can't fit in totally for everybody. I want this book to not remain in the confines of the Jewish community. From doing book signings, there were a number of people who were not Jewish who were getting the book for their child. This is a very big world, and we have to know, perhaps these days more than any other time, about others. We must.

In these days of orange alerts, might a book about religious values be needed to reassure children more than before 9/11?

Absolutely. And there is a lot of anti-Semitism in this world, a great deal, and this is a book that perhaps can help people understand a little bit about what Judaism is about, through the stories. We are living in a different world. Perhaps it's the same world, but we have been woken up because of those events, and they keep occurring in different kinds of ways in different places in the world. Rich Barlow can be reached at rbarlow.81@alum. dartmouth.org.