Once upon a Tale: 12 Illustrated Parables from the Dubno Maggid

Once Upon a Tale: 12 Illustrated Parables from the Dubno Maggid, by Gadi Pollack is a frum, or religious cartoon, based, as the title says, on the stories of the Dubno Maggid.   

The stories have a typical trajectory of Hasidic legendary tales.  The events in the world that we see, seemingly random, are really a part of God’s scheme to further both His will, and for the betterment of people. Usually, the conclusion of the story shows how God has been acting all along, pushing the story ahead, without the actors being aware of the divine script they follow until the very end.

Gadi does a good job in telling these stories, and his illustrations are brilliant and warm.  The Hebrew original is relatively easy to read with an intermediate knowledge of Israeli Hebrew, and some reading knowledge of more religious forms of the language, like Rabbinical Hebrew.