Gefilda Is Getting a Little Smaller: Bringing Her Adventures to Young Readers
Gefilda Fische has battled demons, chased spirits, wielded ancient Jewish artifacts, and somehow turned a shopping cart into a perfectly respectable piece of supernatural equipment.
Now she’s getting ready for a new challenge: younger readers.
I’ve started working on a children’s book featuring Gefilda, tentatively titled Passover Possession. The story takes one of my favorite ideas from The Adventures of Gefilda Fische and reimagines it as a funny, slightly spooky adventure for children.
And because apparently writing the story wasn’t enough of a challenge, I decided I wanted to illustrate it myself.
That has meant learning digital illustration from scratch. I’ve been working in FireAlpaca, creating Gefilda piece by piece so that I can reuse elements throughout the book while keeping her appearance consistent. Hair, glasses, clothes, shoes, hands, and expressions have all become tiny projects in their own right. I have developed opinions about things like wheel placement and the exact amount of curl Gefilda's hair should have that I never expected to possess.
Merkavah, Gefilda’s supernatural shopping cart, is coming along for the adventure too. In the children’s version, the cart still wears its familiar tallit and remains every bit as important to Gefilda as it is in the adult books.
But the project has a larger purpose.
One of the things I love most about writing Gefilda is introducing readers to the wonderfully strange world of Jewish folklore. Jewish tradition is filled with supernatural beings, mysterious objects, wandering spirits, and stories that many people, including many Jewish readers, have never encountered.
I want the children's books to do the same thing on a smaller scale.
Each adventure will introduce children to an element of Jewish folklore through the story, followed by a short, kid-friendly note at the back explaining the tradition behind it.
In Passover Possession, that means meeting an ibbur, a wandering spirit from Jewish folklore. Gefilda encounters one during Passover, and naturally, things do not go according to plan.
The book is still very much a work in progress. I’m illustrating it slowly, learning as I go, and giving myself permission not to rush it. There is no publication date yet.
For now, I thought it would be fun to share a first peek at another corner of Gefilda’s world as it takes shape.
Apparently, one Gefilda series wasn't enough.
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