On the Coffee Table: Joann Sfar

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Title: The Rabbi's Cat 2
Writer and Artist: Joann Sfar

Image via Amazon

If you're new to this series, you might read my review of the first book here.    If anything this second book, including two more stories originally published in France, is better than the first.  In "Heaven on Earth," we learn more about Malka of the Lions, a wandering storyteller.  Themes of love, companionship and devotion are woven throughout.  In "Africa's Jerusalem," the rabbi's world is turned upside-down when a stowaway from the Soviet Union arrives in a crate of holy books.  This leads to a trek across the Sahara to Ethiopia.  Along the way, we are witness to the ethnic, racial and religious clashes which continue to trouble the Western world today.

The story takes place in the 1930s, still pre-World War II.  As the readers, we know big changes are coming.  Sfar hints at the tensions building in Europe but, as yet, the rabbi and his family seem untroubled by them.  So far, there are no new Rabbi's Cat stories published, even in French.  I am certainly curious about what happens next.  Perhaps, we aren't meant to know.