This is a very slight novel, but I loved Benjamin Kleeman. The hardships of the immigrant life in 1930s Toronto are wonderfully captured. As is the relationship that Benjamin develops with the first black girl he has ever seen. It has elements of the typical coming-of-age story, but there is also the story of Benjamin’s family: a father whose creative mind never gets to flourish, a mother trapped in the drudgery of a poor woman’s life in the 1930s and an aunt with a club foot. Benjamin’s discovery of magic is fun to follow.