Title: Invisible Tribe: Stories of Strength and Encouragement for Children Coping With the Loss of a Parent
By: Sara Miriam Gross
Publisher: Menucha
The Torah tells us to take special care of our vulnerable demographics. Especially vulnerable are the “invisible tribe,” young orphans whose needs are overlooked, and who think that they are alone in their troubles.
Enter Links Family, the organization that services children and teens who’ve lost a parent. Over the past eight years, Sara Miriam Gross has written dozens of stories for the magazine that Links publishes for its members. Stories that enable bereaved young readers to recognize themselves, and gain validation and a vocabulary to deal with these new, uninvited situations. Now Menucha Publishers has graciously shared her stories with the public in Invisible Tribe.
The book is divided into three sections, each with its own bright border for easy reference: stories for boys who’ve lost a parent and for girls who’ve lost a parent, with the middle section comprising independent yet connected stories about the Peppercorns, a family going through a year of yom tov and life cycles without their mother. Unlike the other two sections, we get to really know the characters and how they cope.
The stories are compact, yet feature writing that is solid, lively, and packed with emotional depth. They deal with universal scenarios: discomfort with saying Kaddish and Yizkor, moving forward yet holding on through milestones after loss, the tension between secrecy and openness, adjusting to stepparents and stepsiblings, the upheaval of moving. A user-friendly index comprehensively covers the different topics explored.
The stories ring true. As Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz notes in his approbation, they “do not cover up the reality of the loss.” But as he also notes, they are “funny and upbeat.” Illustrator Dena Ackerman’s use of bold primary colors in her full-page illustrations supports the balance of honesty and hope that defines the stories.
I read this book wearing several hats. Under my professional hat, as a librarian, editor, and writer, I couldn’t help but notice opportunities for engagement and the cultivation of imaginative, empathetic thinking. Sure, a kid can pick up the book, have a great read, and then put it back on the shelf for the next reader. But I would encourage a child to read it with curiosity. “Cookies,” about a boy who rations the last of the frozen cookies his mother made, lends itself to predictions. You can’t help but read it and conjecture what different characters will do. In “Snowballs,” Azriel and his siblings manage to have a fun snow day even without hot chocolate the way Mommy made it. What if there was a second chapter? Would the next snow day be different? Who would speak up? All the stories invite retrospection and healing.
I missed Mrs. Gross’s deadline by a few short years but, when donning my personal hat, I read it as an “invisible tribe” member myself. Like Nossi in “Hidden Treasure,” my mother, ob”m, wrote her children notes. Like the parents in the stories, my father managed to function on a remarkably even keel.
I’m so happy that today’s “invisible tribe” has Links Family, and this book. But really, anyone who reads Invisible Tribe will be transformed in some way by the time he or she finishes the last page. Readers – whether they are orphans, their surviving parents, therapists, teachers, or neighbors – will gain a new vocabulary and scripts to be more compassionate in all their encounters and will deal with adversity with the strength and optimism of the children and adults they meet in the book.
I want to go back with a marker and highlight mottos such as “Why not laugh about it now? Why wait till later?” from the story “Mess Gadol Hayah Po.” At a Peppercorn family picnic that has its hiccups, big sister Aliza comments, “That’s just how life is. Not everything that goes wrong has to do with Mommy.”
Readers will find they can be bigger people, like Leah, who lost her mother after an illness, thinking about the needs of her friend who suddenly lost her father to Covid. “Maybe harder and easier isn’t the point. The main thing is to be a good friend, one who understands what it’s like to lose a parent, no matter how it happened.”
And when we face our own challenges and take in the tapestry of our lives, we, like the family in “Leah’s Light,” might just say, “their home was bright and life was really okay.”
