It’s not every day that a comic book heroine is an 11-year-old Orthodox Jewish girl. So when Rockerchick received the book “Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword” (2010, Amulet Books) as a birthday present, I took a look and was quickly entranced by the story of Mirka, a girl with a rebellious streak who lives in a place called Hereville.
Hereville, which the Forward first wrote about here, is also home to a bewitched giant pig and an evil troll (whom Mirka outsmarts with her Jewish-girl seichel). The setting exists somewhere between Anatevka and Boro Park. It is a place where families are close and siblings are irritating, where children sometimes encounter bullies on their way home from school, and where the tantalizing scent of baking challah lets everyone know that Shabbos is on its way.
The story is the creation of cartoonist Barry Deutsch, who lives in Portland, Ore., but is busy speaking at Jewish schools and comic shows across the country. He recently spoke with The Sisterhood about how a 41-year-old single, childless guy raised in a family in which ham was on the menu and synagogue was visited only on the High Holy Days, came to write about a young, frum heroine.
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