The Truth about My Bat Mitzvah (review)

When Caroline's grandmother dies, Caroline is grief-stricken; when she discovers that Nana has left Caroline her Star of David necklace, Caroline begins to consider its meaning. With a gentile father and non-practicing mother, Caroline has had little involvement with her grandmother's Jewish faith, but as Caroline mourns the loss of her beloved grandmother and watches her best friend, Rachel, approach her bat mitzvah, she realizes she must develop her own relationship with Judaism. A tenderly told story, this is more about family and identity than about theology. Caroline's ignorance about Judaism is pretty considerable ("But hadn't there just been a Jewish holiday last week?" she thinks when Rachel misses school for Yom Kippur) and doesn't change all that much; what does change is her attitude toward her Jewishness and her knowledge about her grandparents' and parents' history in and out of faith. That's a realistic transformation in the face of bereavement, and it's a warm and credible touch that Caroline's parents accept her new interest; there's another layer added by Caroline's discovery that her immigrant grandmother was considered to be "too Jewish" by her assimilated in-laws, further complicating Caroline's nascent investigation of religion. Caroline's situation will be familiar to many readers, and they'll warm to her growth and self-discovery.