Katherine Locke (1)

I don't love every story - but the ones I love, I love HARD.

(Full disclosure: I received a free e-ARC for review through NetGalley. Trigger warning for mental health issues, including eating disorders and social anxiety; bullying; and discussions of homophobia.)

I’ll probably never know what a space station careening through the atmosphere looks like, because I wasn’t looking up anymore. I was looking at him and smiling, and he was smiling back at me, and his braces were gleaming like show more starlight, and he whispered, “Shehecheyanu,” and I leaned forward, and I pressed my lips against his stars.
("Indoor Kids" by Alex London)

I wish I’d had the experience, the wisdom then to tell him: To me, Jewish is knowing that you can’t be asked to have pride in one part of your identity and then be told to have shame about another part. Whoever asks you to do that is wrong. To be proud as a Jew is to be proud of everything you are.
("The Hold" by David Levithan)

My chewing sounds like applause.
("Neilah" by Hannah Moskowitz)

As you can certainly gleam (yes, I meant to say "gleam, with an m," in deference to both this anthology's overall shininess as well as the opening story; don't @ me; and yes, that last was a hat tip to editor Katherine Locke's highly enjoyable contribution, "Some Days You’re the Sidekick; Some Days You’re the Superhero"; you can @ me on that one as you wish, because I have FEELINGS) from the title, It's a Whole Spiel: Love, Latkes, and Other Jewish Stories is a collection of short stories written by Jewish authors, primarily for a Jewish, YA audience. Most are of the contemporary/realistic fiction persuasion, but there's a little bit of fantasy and memoir sprinkled throughout.

I LOVE that this book exists - especially in this time and place in history - and it pains me equally to say that I didn't fall in love with every single story. Them's usually the breaks with anthologies, though. That said, I would recommend It's a Whole Spiel on the basis of David Levithan's essay alone. (In my notes I just wrote "wow".)

I'll admit, I wasn't into "The Hold" at first. Whereas the rest of the pieces take the form of a more traditional short fiction story, "The Hold" is more of a nonfiction story without a clear structure, at least at the outset. But as the narrative begins to take shape, and Levithan recounts coming out as a young Jewish boy, in like with another boy from his temple who would later run away, vanishing without a goodbye, you know you're being gifted with something special.

Our time together became a good dream, possibly the best dream. I never forgot it, but I remembered it less and less, as other dreams joined in. I’ve written about him hundreds of times, and I haven’t written about him at all until now.

This is the first thing I've read by David Levithan, but it won't be my last.

"Some Days You’re the Sidekick; Some Days You’re the Superhero" by Katherine Locke is also a real treat, especially for self-professed nerds who prefer virtual spaces to "real" ones. ("I’m not tagging you, but you know who you are.") Awkward in person, but a master with the written word, Gabe spends much of his free time writing fan fic for the website Milk & Honey, "a whole site dedicated to reimagining every canon character as Jewish" (and trying to figure out how to parlay his hobby into a winning college application). Little does he know that Yael, the owner of the site on whom he's been crushing hard, is someone he knows in meat space - and that a shared love of the X-Men reimagined as the Maccabees might just give him/them a second chance.

Also amazing is "Neilah" by Hannah Moskowitz. Like many of the stories in these here pages, "Neilah" centers around the theme of not being "Jewish enough," of suffering from imposter syndrome, and ties this disconnect to the MC's eating disorder. When she was dating her ex, a "good" Gentile boy who showered her not with love, but backhanded compliments or outright criticism, she shrank up and tried to fold into herself, to disappear. To be less: less loud, less big, less Jewish. But a new relationship with a devout Jewish girl named Mira is about to change all that. It's an inspired analogy with an inspiring ending.

I really enjoyed editor Laura Silverman's story, "Be Brave and All," in which protagonist Naomi, dragged to the national JZY convention by her best friend Rachel, conquers her anxiety to stand up for something she believes in (gun control, which nicely ties this story to current events).

Many of the MCs in these stories are embarking on journeys in the literal sense of the word as well as the metaphorical, whether meeting their new boyfriend's family for the first time (during an earthquake! argh!), traveling to Israel on a Birthright trip, or attending a Jewish summer camp or convention. These tales are at their most satisfying when the protagonist experiences growth - but, weirdly, this is not always the case. ("El Al 328" by Dana Schwartz is just straight-up demoralizing. The ending felt like my life and was sad and uncomfortable AF.)

"Indoor Kids" by Alex London also deserves a shout-out, both for its nerdy space program backdrop, and its adorable M/M romance. And that writing! It takes a special talent to make braces seem so magical.

"Indoor Kids" by Alex London - 4/5
"Two Truths and an Oy" by Dahlia Adler - 3/5
"The Hold" by David Levithan - 5/5 wow
"Aftershocks" by Rachel Lynn Solomon - 3/5
"Good Shabbos" by Goldy Moldavsky - 2/5 did not care for the abundance of footnotes
"Jewbacca" by Lance Rubin - 3/5
"El Al 328" by Dana Schwartz - 1/5 ugh?
"Some Days You’re the Sidekick; Some Days You’re the Superhero" by Katherine Locke - 5/5 amazing
"He Who Revives the Dead" by Elie Lichtschein - 3/5
"Be Brave and All" by Laura Silverman - 5/5
"Neilah" by Hannah Moskowitz - 5/5
"Find the River" by Matthue Roth - 2/5
"Ajshara" By Adi Alsaid - 2.5/5
"Twelve Frames" by Nova Ren Suma - 3/5

http://www.easyvegan.info/2019/09/24/its-a-whole-spiel-edited-by-katherine-locke... show less

There are more and more picture books coming out about gender identity. This one focuses on a child named Ari who is not sure of their pronouns. The child feels like their pronouns can change from one day to another -- which I interpreted as a genderfluid identity. "My pronouns are like the weather. They change depending on how I feel. And that's okay, because they're my words."

Ari experiences a lot of anxiety about choosing pronouns in this book. It actually made me feel a bit anxious show more myself, like stop pressuring this kid to pick a label! But no one is actively pressuring Ari. The pressure is coming from inside Ari. "It shouldn't take this long to find my words. Everyone else seems to know theirs!"

The emphasis is on how labels, adjectives, and pronouns feel to you. Do they feel like they fit? He, him, she, her, ey, and eir don't feel right for Ari on the day this story takes place. In the end, with much excitement, Ari declares that they/them feels "warm and snug" and perfect. show less

While on a school trip to Berlin, 16-year-old Ellie Baum grabs hold of a red balloon that transports her back to 1988 East Berlin. She’s discovered by Kai, a Romani Runner who helps transport people over the Berlin Wall to freedom. The Runners work with Schöpfers, magicians who write mathematical equations on the red balloons that are used for transportation. Kai and his Runner partner, Mitzi, keep Ellie in a safe house until they can figure out how to get her back to her own time. When show more other dead time travelers begin to appear, the three become increasingly afraid that one of the Schöpfers has gone rogue.

This isn’t the kind of book I would normally pick up – young adult, historical fantasy, teen romance. It was selected as this quarter’s OverDrive Big Read, and when I saw that the plot has a Holocaust connection, I decided to check it out. I enjoyed it more than I expected to. I was fascinated by the setting in East Berlin just before the fall of the Berlin Wall. The three main characters have a heightened sense of danger because they belong to socially unacceptable groups. Ellie is Jewish, Kai is Romani, and Mitzi is lesbian. The characters wrestle with questions of good and evil and the moral obligations of individuals in a totalitarian society. The Holocaust and survivors guilt have a role in the story. I was a bit disappointed with the ending. Kai’s sister figured out a way to send Ellie back to her own time, but the book ended without telling readers if she really made it home and what happened when she arrived. show less

These 16 short stories by celebrated authors of literature for young people center the experiences of LGBTQ+ youth in pivotal moments of childhood and adolescence.

As the title suggests, this collection delivers a spectrum of diversity in representation of both personal identities and genre. Whether the stories contain overt fantasy (like dragons, spells, the undead, and time loops), subtle glimmers of the supernatural (like ghosts and magical letters), or realistic grounding in the everyday show more (like a new kitten, sports, and school), they capture with honesty and vulnerability the feelings that accompany events like the grief of losing a friend or facing rejection from a crush, the nervous thrill of new feelings for someone special, and the freeing, but sometimes still scary, power of self-discovery. Although the majority of the selections are prose, the anthology includes two comics and one story in verse. Many of the protagonists feel a budding desire for close connection—a witch with a squish on her ordinary neighbor, an aspiring marine biologist with a changing friend group, a pirate who misses their sister—and they overcome self-doubt to reach for it. Not every crush works out, and sometimes feelings get hurt, but these outcomes lean toward recovery and personal growth while validating the sadness of loneliness. An essential read, this collection breaks free from the dichotomy of representing LGBTQ+ lives as total tragedy or one-true-love, happily-ever-after coming-out stories.

Vital and liberating. (Anthology. 8-13)
(Kirkus Review) show less