Ruby Finkelman Finds the Real Magic by Michael King with illustrations by Shahar Kober; Oakland, California: The Collective Book Studio; © 2025; ISBN 9781685-552981; 30 pages; $18.95; publication date: May 6, 2005.
SAN DIEGO – There’s a well-known saying that “one good deed (mitzvah) leads to another.” Similarly, “to save one life is to save the world.” Both sayings emphasize that doing a relatively small thing can lead to large consequences.
So, what if you do one small wrong thing? Author Mike King is a pediatric dentist, so it’s not surprising that Ruby Finkelman’s one small misdeed is refusing to brush her teeth. Soon all the children in her small town of Kvellville followed Ruby’s example.
As one good deed can lead to another, so too can one misdeed lead to another. Children stopped making their beds, cleaning their rooms, clearing the dishes from the dinner table. Adults followed suit by not doing laundry, taking out the garbage and so forth.
Soon Kvellville, which used to softly hum with the satisfaction of proper living, stopped humming. It smelled bad. Birds stopped flying over Kvellville; they flew around it. Visitors who used to enjoy sojourning in the perfect little town, now avoided it.
And then Ruby changed her mind, realizing that the town’s deterioration was all her fault. So, she brushed her teeth, made her bed, cleaned her room, and cleared away the garbage not only from her house, but also from the neighbors’ houses.
Other children followed Ruby’s example. And soon the town was set right. The soft sound of kvelling could be heard again.
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Donald H. Harrison is publisher and editor of San Diego Jewish World.