By: Leah
Benji Zeb is a Ravenous Werewolf
- Author: Deke Moulton
- Genre: MG Fantasy
- Publication Date: July 2, 2024
- Publisher: Penguin Random House Canada
Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
CONTENT WARNING: anxiety, on-page panic attack, antisemitism, racism, mention of death of a parent, xenophobia, homophobia
Originally posted on Leah’s Books.
Plot Summary
Benji Zeb has to balance preparing for his bar mitzvah, his feelings for a school bully, and being a werewolf in this heartfelt, coming-of-age novel for young readers. For fans of Don’t Want to Be Your Monster and Too Bright to See.
Benji Zeb is good at keeping secrets. No one knows how badly he is drowning in his studies, not only for school but also his upcoming bar mitzvah. He’s nervous about Mr. Rutherford, the aggressive local rancher who wants to shut down Benji’s family’s kibbutz and wolf sanctuary—but no one in the family is allowing him to help. And Benji hasn’t figured out what to do about Caleb Gao, Mr. Rutherford’s adopted son, who turned into a jerk over the summer despite Benji being pretty sure they were both crushing on each other the entire previous year.
But the biggest secret of all? He and his entire family are werewolves, using the wolf sanctuary as cover for their true identities.
But it life gets harder when a new werewolf shows up at the kibbutz one night . . . and it’s none other than Caleb! He’s unable to control his shifting and refuses to go home. He needs Benji’s help. But with everything piling up, can anxious Benji juggle all of these things along with his growing feelings toward Caleb?
Overall Impression
I originally came to know the author of this book when they were still working on their debut book, through Twitter. I loved watching their journey as they struggled through deconstructing the antisemitic influence in vampire stories, and couldn’t wait to see the finished result. It far exceeded my expectations, and it made me even more eager to get my hands on this book.
Once I started, I was even more excited for this book, because it was everything I would have wanted to see in a story when I was the target age for this. However, reading it as an adult was just as enjoyable. To start with, this is an overwhelmingly Jewish book, but you don’t have to be Jewish to read it. There are a lot of Hebrew and Yiddish terms sprinkled throughout the story, but have no fear, there’s a glossary that explains everything very clearly, and in a way that makes it accessible for younger readers.
“(Midrash is a biblical exploration, like rabbinical fanfiction).”
I loved the way that Moulton doesn’t just pop Benji’s Jewishness into the story like an additive, but rather makes it a key thread that runs through the entire story. Benji lives on a kibbutz setting that also serves as a wolf sanctuary, and while everyone speaks English, they also use a lot of Hebrew and Yiddish loanwords. The kibbutz is made up of observant Jews from different diaspora communities, highlighting the diversity of the Jewish people. Among the families living on the kibbutz are Ashkenazi Jews who settled in Eastern Europe, but there are also families belonging to the Cochin Jews of India, the Mizrahi Jews of Baghdad, and Beta Israel Jews from Ethiopia. The vast majority of these families have experiences antisemitism, xenophobia, ethnic cleansing and threats of genocide. However, the families on the kibbutz all function as a giant family, whether they are related or not. One of my favorite aspects of the story is how Benji finds comfort in the familiarity of prayers—knowing that they have been recited the same way by people all over the world for centuries, and it’s one of my favorite aspects of Jewish practice as well.
“I know exactly what to say. What’s going to be said next. And what comes after that. The rituals have an order. They haven’t changed in centuries. I’m not even ashamed to admit the predictability helps me feel safe.”
Benji is preparing for his bar mitzvah, a big event for a young Jewish boy. It’s complicated by his anxiety—he struggles with anxiety and hasn’t opened up about it to anyone. Benji feels pressure to hide his anxiety because he feels as though werewolves are required to demonstrate control, and having anxiety will show that he doesn’t have control. However, it makes it difficult for him to focus and speak in front of others, including his family. He has found a couple of coping skills that work for him, and we get to see Benji practicing his coping skills in the book. Additionally, Benji grows over the course of the story and makes a lot of progress in coping with his anxiety.
Moulton completely deconstructs the werewolf myth in a similar way that they did with vampire lore. In this book, rather than being transmitted through a bite, werewolves are born that way, with all werewolves having some degree of Jewish ancestry. I loved how it was explained, but most of all, that there was a learning curve for new werewolves to function as wolves when they’ve been humans for their whole lives. It’s always frustrating to me when a character learns a new skill instantaneously, and that was completely avoided here.
“Werewolves aren’t created the way the myths say they are. Werewolves can bite people all day and wouldn’t make a single new werewolf. There’s nothing magical or curse-filled with our bite or spit or blood or whatever. You have to be born as a werewolf.”
This story was wonderful. There are a lot of heavy topics that are discussed throughout the book—anxiety, prejudice, antisemitism, racism, xenophobia, and homophobia—and they directly affect the main characters in the story. Benji is Jewish, gay, and deals with his anxiety on a daily basis. The other major character in the story, Caleb, is biracial and gay, and shows up at the kibbutz because he suddenly discovers he is a werewolf as well. There’s a lot of time devoted to unpacking stereotypes and counteracting them, as well as finding new and creative ways to fighting hatred in various forms.
This is an especially meaningful book, and the author’s note makes that clear for a variety of reasons. First of all, Moulton shares their own experiences in the army as an openly Jewish person, living among people who held prejudices, many of whom had never even met a Jewish person before. It’s a lot easier to avoid hate than to stop it once it has taken hold. They also offer resources for people who have anxiety, and Moulton discusses their own experience with anxiety. I’m a huge fan of OwnVoices books, because it adds a level of authenticity to a story that I don’t generally find in books written by authors who don’t have personal experience with the subject matter. But most importantly, I loved the way that they allow Benji to find pride in his identities in a positive way, rather than focusing on the negatives. And the author leaves us with an important suggestion that applies to any group of people we don’t know much about:
“Don’t learn about a group of people from someone who hates them.”
Overall, this is a great story, and I loved every minute of it. We get a bit of everything in this one book, so it’s a satisfying read. There are elements of fantasy, romance, mystery, but this is mainly a coming of age story. The characters are fully developed, even the side characters, and their motivations are explored thoroughly in the story. Readers get to see what Modern Orthodox Judaism is like from the inside through the experience of Benji and his family, and have it explained as Benji describes what is going on to Caleb, who has a lot of questions. I loved seeing the emphasis on tolerance and cooperation to combat hate, which often stems from ignorance and misunderstanding. And while I loved the story for what was in it, I found myself loving it even more when I found out how personal of a story it was for Deke. This book also particularly stood out to me as a prime example of why OwnVoices books are so important—one word in this book hit me right in the feels. One single Yiddish word took me back to the days when my father was alive, and said that word all the time. It made me smile every time it showed up (which was often), and really see myself and my family in the pages of this story. Plus, the glossary helped me finally learn what the word means.
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Functionally Fictional 
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