Jewish Answers to Real-Life Questions
Gr. 5^-7. Faith Blackman does not want a bat mitzvah, and she wants nothing to do with the stand-in student rabbi, Michael Baskin ("Rent-a-Rabbi" she calls him), who is supposed to prepare her for the big day. The story is told through her funny, outrageous diary entries and his rueful letters home to his friend about this assignment he's stuck with in a temple that's about to close in a disappearing Jewish community; then there are notes and comments from various other players in the drama. Framing their voices are cuttings from the media about war, hatred, hunger, racism, poverty, and pollution. All the narratives are in different typefaces, and there are far too many of them, but, confusing as it is, this is the kind of format that lends itself to performance in readers' theater. What will hold kids' interest is Faith's initial insulting commentary and then her reluctant, touching transformation, when her teacher talks to her about the Torah and about what she needs to live a Jewish life, and she listens.Hazel Rochman