Ripped Away
When the fortune teller asks Abe what he’d change about his life, he responds, “I guess I’d be a different person…with a little more going on in their life.” From there, Abe finds himself thrown back in time to Victorian London, only to discover that Mitzy Singer, the girl he’s had a crush on since fourth grade, was sent back in time as well, soon after visiting the same fortune teller. The slums of Whitechapel during Jack the Ripper’s murder spree are not a safe place for Jews once police begin to suspect kosher slaughterers of the murders. While dealing with prejudice and anti-Semitism, Abe and Mitzy must figure out how to fulfill the fortune teller’s prophecies—for Abe to prevent someone’s death and for Mitzy to take a long boat ride—to return to their 21st century lives.
Ripped Away is a fast-paced story set in an historical time and circumstances with a time-travel element that should appeal to a wide range of readers. Abe’s narration is solidly middle grade. Vernick draws an accurate picture of the poverty of Whitechapel, the terror of the Ripper murders, and the palpable anti-Semitism. The novel’s climax, however, feels a bit anti-climactic. Earlier in the story, Abe succeeds in clearing Mitzy’s Uncle Dovid, a kosher slaughterer, of the Ripper murders. Yet Abe is not sucked back to the 21st century until Mitzy, her mother, and Uncle Dovid board the train bound for Liverpool where they will sail to America, implying that only in leaving London is Dovid fully safe. However, there is no urgency in their need to flee. Dovid reports one incident of a rock being thrown at him, and Mitzy’s mother fears “It is Russia all over again,” yet the reader is not shown any danger. This is a short novel, and this reader wishes Vernick had taken just a bit more time to show the real menace facing Jews during this perilous time.
