The cover of Dear Mr. Dickens. Photo: provided.

Dear Mr. Dickens by Nancy Chumin, illustrated by Bethany Stancliffe. (Albert Whitman & Company, 2021).

Writing Dear Mr. Dickens has been an intensely personal labor of love for me.

When I discovered Eliza Davis’ correspondence with Charles Dickens, it was surreal, because she had written the letter I had always dreamed of writing Charles Dickens as a young fan of his work, struggling to understand why he had compassion for everyone except for Jewish people.

Eliza showed me the power of speaking up — even to someone that you might find intimidating — but also how we should admire the ability and determination to change and do better; and, ultimately, the importance of forgiveness. Because after Dickens atoned, Eliza not only forgave him, but she admired him all the more for his nobility of spirit. 

My book puts the impact of how Eliza changed Charles Dickens’ heart in context.

England had once been one of the most antisemitic countries in Europe. They expelled their Jewish population before the Spanish did. They forced their Jewish population to wear yellow badges of the Ten Commandments long before the Nazis created the yellow Jewish stars. Attitudes changed during the lifetimes of Charles Dickens and Eliza Davis, and I give Charles Dickens some (not all!) credit for that.

Below is an excerpt from the book:

Think of someone famous you admire.

What would you do if that person said or wrote something unfair?

Would you speak up?

Would you risk getting that person angry?

Eliza Davis did.

Charles Dickens was the most famous writer of Eliza’s time. English people from all walks of life eagerly paid two pence for his weekly magazine All the Year Round to read the latest installments of his stories. Later, he’d publish the stories as books that passengers bought at bookshops and railway stations.

But what made Charles Dickens a hero in Eliza’s eyes is that he used the power of his pen to help others. When he wrote about children forced to labor in workhouses, people demanded change. When his readers were moved to tears by tales of families struggling in desperate, dirty conditions, they gave what they could to charities.

As did Eliza.

Yes, Dickens had a heart as big as England, overflowing with compassion for everyone.

Except…

Eliza remembered when she read Dickens’s book “Oliver Twist,” about a poor orphan. She had loved it at first — until she got to Chapter Eight, where she read about the “old shriveled Jew” teaching Oliver to steal.

Eliza was Jewish.

Charles Dickens described “the Jew” as dishonest, selfish, cruel, and ugly. The character’s name was Fagin, but over and over, Dickens wrote the Jew, the Jew, the Jew. Each time, the word hurt like a hammer on Eliza’s heart.

Nancy Churnin, a native New Yorker now based in North Texas, is the award-winning author of 10 picture books, including Dear Mr. Dickens and A Queen to the Rescue, the Story of Henrietta Szold, Founder of Hadassah, both out in October. 

From Dear Mr. Dickens, First published by Albert Whitman & Co in the United States of America in 2021. Text copyright © 2021 Nancy Churnin, illustrations copyright © 2021 Albert Whitman & Co. Illustrations by Bethany Stancliffe.