by Yona Zeldis Mcdonough
A new setting for a familiar family saga
Maja Kriel, an author from South Africa, has been around the block and around the world. Or at least that is the impression she gives in her first novel, Rings in a Tree (Kwela Books, $23.95), in which her characters circumnavigate the globe. This peripatetic family saga begins in the tiny village of Sharabaka, Poland, where Chava and her best friend Wlad share the joys of the countryside: