Gideon's People

The ALAN Review - Jeffrey Kaplan

Now here's a switch. Twelve-year-old Isaac Litvak, an Orthodox Jew, wakes up after a wagon accident in the home of an Amish family. Really. After all, how many stories have you read where the two conflicting cultures are Orthodox Jews and the Amish? The novelty of this unique clash of cultures makes for a most interesting and provocative read. Trouble begins when Gideon, the sixteen-year-old son in this kind Amish family, announces to his new-found friend, Isaac, that he is secretly planning to run away. Gideon is rebelling from his traditional Amish responsibilities - preparing for his baptism, getting married, and settling down. Gideon's sister Annie, however, begs Isaac to help her prevent Gideon from running away. If Gideon leaves, Annie explains, his Amish family will have to shun him. Isaac, an Orthodox Jew, knows all too well the rigors of rituals as he struggles to come to grips with the need to balance family traditions and personal freedoms.

Children's Literature - Judy Silverman

The time is 1911, and the place, Lancaster, PA. Isaac, the son of Peddler Jakob, is injured when his father's new wagon crashes on a bridge. The Amish family on the farm beside the bridge picks him up, literally, and lets him stay with them until his father can come back and get him. Gideon is the Amish son who, at 16, is closest to Isaac in age. The differences in their lives nearly outweigh their abilities to recognize their similar needs. The contrast between Orthodox Jewish beliefs and those of a strict Amish household is skillfully drawn. Both boys want lives different from those of their parents, but question how they might leave home without being given up for dead (a common parental reaction in both religions). The book is peopled with real characters in real situations.

School Library Journal

Gr 6-9In this novel set at the turn of the century, two boysone Orthodox Jew and the other Amishare brought together by chance. When Isaac Litvak, 12, is injured on an Amish farm, his Jewish peddler father leaves him behind to recuperate with the whispered reminder, "Remember who you are." Though kind and well-meaning, the foreign-speaking family's eating habits and religious laws are strange. Also, Isaac senses anger and tension. Gideon Stolzfus, 16, chafes under the rigid tenets of his family's local sect, and plans to run away to his uncle's more lenient community. His sister Annie finds his secret stash of "englische" clothes, a forbidden copy of Treasure Island, and a harmonica. She fears losing him forever and begs Isaac to help her persuade Gideon to stay. Deft characterizations and juxtaposition of fathers and sons amplify similarities and differences between the families and cultures. Gideon's stern, unyielding father illustrates the vast emotional chasm that results from a heavy-handed approach in parent/teen relations, universally, in any culture, at any time. While Isaac's faith is not tested in abusive circumstances, as it is with the Amish teen, worldly interactions complicate matters. Many of the complex issues raised here are explored in greater depth in Kathryn Lasky's Beyond the Divide Macmillan, 1983 or Chaim Potok's The Chosen Fawcett, 1987.Alice Casey Smith, Sayreville War Memorial High School, NJ

Kirkus Reviews

Isaac, 12, and his father, Jakob—a peddler of household goods just after the turn of the century—are making the rounds of their customers in eastern Pennsylvania when an accident leaves the boy badly hurt. An Amish farm family takes Isaac in while Jakob returns to his wife, who is about to give birth. Isaac begins to heal under the gentle ministrations of Mamm (the mother) and makes friends with two of her children—Gideon, 16, and his younger sister Annie—but life in an Old Order Amish household is not easy for him, an Orthodox Jew. There is trouble in the outwardly idyllic household: Gideon does not get along with the autocratic Datt (father) and plans to leave, even though he will be shunned by family and friends "for all eternity."

A quaint tale of another era? Not likely. The story is fascinating as an in-depth examination of two disparate cultures that—the boys discover—share many of the commonalities of the human experience; it's also a great coming- of-age novel, inhabited by people who may dress and speak differently from many readers but whose actions are entirely understandable. Meyer (Rio Grande Stories, 1994) gives her characters the motives, beliefs, hearts, and dreams to make each one's behavior compelling and inevitable.