What is the setting in the novel, Dear Elijah?

The territory of Dear Elijah is the remarkable search-for-self in Rebecca's mind, and this turbulent inner life is depicted with a compassionate gravity that gives the novel universal appeal for young readers. Even adults will recognize in Rebecca's plight their own difficult struggles to understand the unreasonableness of life and death. Rebecca's mind conducts an extended correspondence among Elijah, God, and her family. She chooses to write to Elijah the Prophet because she finds God intimidating. The Elijah of Jewish tradition is a man with mystical powers and, being human, seems easier to converse with than God.

Rebecca imagines playing games with Elijah, confiding in him, asking him for advice, asking him for help, and joking around with him. She even becomes irritated with his sense of humor. Much of the power of the narrative comes from the irony of Rebecca's interaction with Elijah; he is a father figure—"sometimes you look a little like my dad, but you're not him.

You're someone I can talk to." Her father is a remote personality, separated by a piety that she shares yet rebels against. Even so, when she speaks of Elijah's influence on her, her relationship to her father can be sensed: "sometimes, Elijah, I can feel you inside of me or across from me or speaking out across eternities of sand."

There is an exterior landscape that figures in Rebecca's writings to Elijah, one common to urban and suburban America, with schools, homes, and stores. The most important place is the part of the home in which Passover will be observed, where the table is set that holds the glass of wine that Elijah will come to drink. Here, in the past, Rebecca's father governed the observance; Rebecca would open the front door to let Elijah in. There is school, a dull place where Rebecca is expected to memorize facts; her father's illness is apparently known to those at school and "everybody expects me to be a poor performer these days." The deli where the family buys some of its Passover preparations stan