I would say it's weird to not be starting the school year this September, since my new full-time job is not in education, but I am sort of starting a school year this September--my first as a Hebrew school teacher. That is not something I ever imagined saying, but my synagogue really needed teachers, and the education director heard I was one. I told him my Hebrew isn't that great and Hebrew school was often a terrible experience for me--and he said, me too! (On the latter thing--he is very good at Hebrew). We bonded over the idea of making this a better experience for these kids, so I will try. I don't know that this is going to be a regular thing, but it's a way to help my community, stay connected to education, and hopefully give these kids better memories than I have. Anyway, with one FT job and two part-time teaching gigs, I'm not sure how much time I'll have for the blog, but I'll keep chronicling whatever non-work reads I manage to finish (will probably add some work reads if appropriate!).
Books Read This Month
- I Want to Be Where the Normal People Are by Rachel Bloom--It's nice and also weird to read a memoir by someone about my age. I've only watched one episode of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend but I wanted to read the book because of the extremely '90s cover and Little Mermaid reference in the title. Entertaining for my fellow millenial theatre kids!
- The Book of Lost Names by Kristin Harmel--Another book club read because the last thing I want these days is another World War II read, but this is one is about a Jewish forger in France, which is slightly different, and the love story is sweet. I also love the concept of the Book of Lost Names, a way to save the true identities of the young Jewish children as well as their lives. It reminded me of the trauma when children were separated from their parents at the U.S. border more recently.
- One, Two, Three by Laurie Frankel--Next month's book club read, this was the perfect read for the High Holidays, with themes of sin, forgiveness, redemption, anger, and revolution. It reads like it should be magical realism or post-apocalyptic, but it isn't--just a town where a dangerous chemical polluted the water sixteen years ago and three sixteen-year-old triplets were born and live. Highly recommend.
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