I haven't checked the weather yet, but I know it is the perfect day to chat about adult Jewish literature. I'm Sheryl Stahl. Thanks for joining me here at nice Jewish books I write today I am so pleased to welcome Don Futterman, the author of Adam Unrehearsed, I thought that Adam was one of the most realistic and engaging young characters I've read in a while. So welcome, Don. And would you please tell me about him in your book?
Sure. First of all, thank you for those kind words. Adam unrehearsed is a coming of age comedy. It's about a 12 year old boy in New York in 1970, and 71. During the year, the run up to his bar mitzvah, and Adam, during this year, in addition to preparing for his bar mitzvah goes through a lot of unexpected things, losing some of his close friends, quite inexplicably. And at the same time, he also runs afoul of several different gangs. So he's having his first encounters with feeling unsafe with violence. Also, his first run-ins with anti-semitism, on a personal level, hearing, for the first time in his life, anti semitic epithets, but also his synagogue is vandalized repeatedly. And during this year, he also falls in love with acting isn't a drama class, he goes to a public school in New York. This is a story about a boy who's got a strong Jewish identity, but it's not orthodoxy, its in a conservative synagogue, and he has a very ethnically mixed group of friends from school from his his neighborhood. And during this year, he discovers the stage he discovers theater, he discovers acting and performing. So in a sense, he's spent much of this year in rehearsal, rehearsal for a play that he's putting on in school and for other theater exercises that he's required to do for his class, and also rehearsing for his bar mitzvah. And he has a very kind of boisterous, larger than life Cantor, who has a has a big voice that fills up the room. And Adam is a small skinny kid is a smart kid, he's in the he's in the smart class in school, in New York City had a program where you could you could, for the gifted students, where they could go through junior high school, which in those days was seventh, eighth and ninth grades, you could do it in two years. So you go straight from seventh to ninth grade, and he was in that two year program. So he's kind of surrounded by other bright kids. And they're all together and somewhat isolated from the rest of the school because they have most of the classes by themselves. But theater is this whole other world for Adam, where he can get out of his head where he gets to try to be somebody else where he gets to be figures who are very different from him, and also where their life experience is different from him. And, and that really is kind of his his solid story, what is otherwise very difficult and demanding a year. Because the books also a lot about friendship. And Adam, in the course of that will develop some unexpected friendships, friends, kind of materializing in places that he wouldn't have necessarily anticipated at the beginning of the year. So he goes through a lot of changes, a lot of, you know, it's really, he's coming of age and beginning to grow up and starting to understand a lot more about the world. Now that he's turning 13. And because of things that he's going through.
You mentioned some of these, and there are actually a lot of different social issues that run through the theme. And I think that You wove them in really, really well, without it sounding pedantic and preachy. You know, it's like, look what's going on. One of those issues were black Jewish relations, and how it was kind of intertwined with upward mobility. So can you talk about that a little bit?
Oh, sure. He is kind of startled to hear their first anti semitic derogatory epithets coming out of the mouths of black teenagers. And he, from what do you know, he's in a very liberal family, big believers in civil rights, very proud of the progress America is making in the 60s and 70s on the on the on the civil rights front. And he kind of takes it for granted that Jews and blacks are together, their allies, and they have common cause. And so he's particularly shocked to hear black kids saying derogatory things about Jews. And later there's a black character who isn't saying anything anti semitic, but who add him at first feel somewhat threatened by, and they have kind of a dance that goes on throughout the course of the of the novel, where he tries to kind of understand what this kid is going through. I don't want to give him give him any spoilers here. But there is a sense of the dynamics that are going on politically, are affecting these kids in ways they can't quite see. I mean, there's other boys a little bit older a couple of years older than than Adam, but both of them are the children of teachers. Adams parents are a teacher at a school principal. And 1970 was two years after a very bitter teacher strike in New York City, which in a certain level ended up pitting the Jewish community against African American community in the city, because the strike was about the desire by activists in some predominantly African American communities to have more control over their schools. And to have more control over choosing the principal choosing the teachers and the teachers, the public school system, had a very high percentage of Jewish teachers and the United Federation of Teachers in New York, the teachers union was was also led by Albert Shanker was kind of a mythical figure who was Jewish, and had a lot of Jews who were at the head of that, and Jews kind of get into the teaching profession. After World War Two, partly through the GI Bill, it was a profession that was open to Jews, there was a way to move up is solidly into the middle class. And a lot of Jews followed suit. So I so I had Adams parents, as characters both be in that educational world, and still kind of dealing with the reverberations of that teacher strike, even though it was two years before. And one of the things that I discovered more in research, and I lived through it as a kid, but as a kid, I just remembered that there was a strike, we didn't have school for weeks and weeks and weeks. And we were not complaining about that we still in Hebrew school, so it's middle of the day, that we were free the rest of the day. But we you know, so I wasn't really aware of this as as a kid. And my parents were not educators. This is not based on my life. But but this is the, what I discovered was that that was considered one of the turning points in the breakdown of the Jewish Black Alliance that teachers strike, because it kind of, and again, it's still debated, I think, till today about whether it was the communities are being manipulated, set one against the other, or that was a way to try to gather support or to play off fears, playoff fears of, of the Jews in the teachers union, that they were going to be losing their jobs, or to pit these communities, who were both minority communities trying to establish themselves in New York and trying to gain more influence and power at that time, so that they would not threaten other communities that already had more control. So so it's a complicated time. And there were a lot of unpleasant incidents that happened at that time, that had reverberations for many years afterwards. So I touch on those things. I mean, again, it's not a, it's not a sociology book, it's not a history book. So those things are kind of happening in the background. And you see how it's impacting the kids. And it's impacting when things of the hear things that adults are saying that they don't completely understand. But they're also it shows some of the fears and suspicions that community had of each other. The Jews, American Jews at the time, I think, you know, I would say that, that when I was growing up, and Adam is essentially the age I was, I was dragging my personal experience for what was happening in that period in that sense. That was really the first generation that felt completely secure in America completely accepted. I mean, I remember as a kid, I felt utterly American and proud of that, and very proud of being Jewish, and I didn't see any conflict there. And when my parents would tell me to be at my best behavior, and I was in public, to make sure that I never did anything that would give us a bad name or a bad image. If I was in front of non Jews. I thought they were paranoid. You know, I thought, well, what are they talking about? We're all the same. We're all just here together. And that was certainly something their generation didn't feel to me. My grandparents generation immigrants generation didn't feel that at all. So I think we felt very secure and again, because I was in public school, I wasn't in Jewish Day School. So I was very much mixing with everybody all the time. You know, we felt just, we were all we were all in this boat together. We were all we were all part of things. So I think Adam gets a little bit blindsided when he first encounters anti semitism at all. And then coming from the black community particularly catches him off guard. But you know, there was in the Jewish community, certain prejudices, and there were certainly racism as well, even though there was liberal ideals, and, you know, sometimes different parts of the community, sometimes different parts of the same person. So, you know, I tried to, I tried to address that, again, somewhat lightly. But that's, that's happening as well. And Adams got to contend with suspicions he hears from other people, sometimes from Jews, sometimes some sort of from other African Americans who are themselves nervous about different people in their own community. And he's trying to juggle and navigate all that, you know, I think that age, you know, when you're an adolescent, and then through your teen years, you're trying to put it together, you're trying to figure out the adult world, that's just one part of the adult world, that's particularly confusing. But it's in a bigger, you know, dynamic that's going on for him in the course of the book is the book is a comedy. And part of part of what creates that comedy. Besides that adolescence, when you're not living through it is actually very funny time. You know, if you look back on it, but but, but he's also tried to figure out how does he, how does he stand out and blend in at the same time, because as a kid, you want to do both, you want to be just like everybody else, but you also want to be special? So how do you do that? Absolutely. You know, and being on stage, whether it's in an acting class, or in the on the Bema, in your synagogue, you sure are ways that you stand out while you're in the spotlight. And then you can fall back afterwards and blend in with all the crowd with your friends. And he's trying to figure that out. And he has a number of different mentors in the book. The cantor is one of them, his older brother was another, his parents, his acting teacher, they're all kind of mentor figures. But they're all kind of glomming on to a different aspect of Adam. You know, some of them are seeing Adam as a younger version of themselves. And some of them are seeing Adam as a kid is very different than themselves. And there's confusion there as well. Because sometimes the adults are having their own experience, and the kid doesn't realize what's going on for them. But as a kid, you know, especially Adams, a bright kid, he's a good kid, he's used to doing well in school is used to getting a lot of positive reinforcement. He's trying to keep everybody happy. But he's also trying to figure out what it takes to keep them all satisfied. What what do all these adults want for them? And what does he have to do both to keep them happy, but also to be contented himself. And sometimes there's a conflict between what the adults want, and what he wants. And he has to figure out how to navigate that as well.
This is all kind of in the background of his relationship with Michael, the slightly older, black boy that you mentioned. And he kind of wants to connect, but it's really hard for him to give Michael the benefit of the doubt, because of the experiences he's had with some members of the black community. You know, it just makes it that much harder to connect as a person.
Well, he's also I think, Michael is a little older, he also has kind of an attitude of coolness, and he smokes cigarettes and things which are completely taboo to add him. But he's also drawn to that it's a little bit of the forbidden side. And he's inventing in his mind all kinds of fantasies about Michael Michael's life, because he doesn't really know him. And later, he'll find out that Michael's a lot more like him that he thinks they have a lot in common although Adam's in the high achievers class in school, and Michael's in the lower cheapest class in school, the same school. And that's something that also is confusing to Adam. Because as he does get to know him he realizes that this guy is very bright. This guy is very creative. So that also opens questions to him, especially as a kid who's always been judged, appreciated, evaluated by how well he does in school, you know, he gets high marks, and that's part of his identity. And here's a kid who gets low marks, which is certainly part of his identity as well. But how does that affect the rest of him? And that, you know, opens I think, I think Adam learner learns a lot about challenging his own preconceptions in the course of the novel, which is part of growing up there was changing your assumptions about people. And I mean, he meets another friend who's, who's from a recently arrived. It's an Indian family originally, but who has been living in England for many years. And the boy is Adams age, and he was born and raised in England, and they've recently immigrated to New York. And here's another kid coming from a very different world than Adam, and they also make a connection. So, you know, Adam is kind of getting out of his comfort zone of his original core group of friends and now everyone's friends weren't all Jewish. He had a very mixed group of friends, but he He's meeting new kids who are outside of the world that he's he's familiar with. And that's also causing him to open up a little bit as well.
And that was sort of a consequence of his best friend ghosting him and telling all the other gang of friends not to talk to him. You know, we don't find out till the very end what the misunderstanding was because it was a Jacob, you know, never said, Jason. Right. Jason sorry. Never told him, you know, why did you do this? So, but that gave Adam an opportunity, or it forced him to find friends elsewhere. And most of the school was already kind of divided into cliques and groups. So he his choices were the other misfits and outcasts, you know, which led him to Suvan.
Right. So that's, that's exactly right. He's, he experienced something is actually really common in school. I mean, I run a educational organization. And we work in low income elementary schools. And we run an annual writing competition for kids in third through sixth grades by grade. And every year, we get dozens of stories, sometimes important that have kids writing about being ostracized in school in their class. Usually, it's girls, it happens much more commonly among girls at this age. But sometimes boys and the boys sometimes even crueler than the girls when they do it, so so so in the book, that it's exactly what you what you described, because he's kind of ostracized by his own gang that he's been with, for most of elementary school. Now, they're a junior high school, and suddenly he's on the outs, with most of them. Not all, but most of them. And he doesn't really know why. And usually, in cases of ostracism, the kids don't really understand why it happened either. Or it's not clear to them, the that puts out of it a position where he has to talk to other kids see, he's you know, he's not in his clique anymore. He's also at a new school, which is much bigger, which is much less familiar and homey than the school he was in for all of elementary school. And so it's all somewhat intimidating. But yeah, but it's also an opportunity, it's an opportunity to meet other people, it's an opportunity to pay more attention to kids that he has known for a long time. But who were never in that first circle, because he had a very tight first circle. And now that he's been pushed out of that circle, suddenly, it's like, okay, there are these other kids. And he also, I think, becomes aware of how it must have been for some of those other kids, when he wasn't paying attention to them in earlier times, when they might want it to be closer friends to him. But he had his clique. So he was, is, is, is a particularly nice kid. So he's not the kind of kid who's going to be nasty to them. But he, you know, he won't pay them too much given too much of his time. And now suddenly, he's like, oh, wait a second, maybe this is what they felt like all these years, when also the issue of what it's like for a kid to be aware. You know, when he was in elementary school, there were very few black kids in the class. And he realized that some of those kids probably felt like outsiders. I mean, he, he kind of knew that in the past, as well, it was, he was aware enough of that, because he could see how they were being treated by other kids. And he would go out of his way to behave differently. But now suddenly, he's experiencing and, and that's very different. You know, and I think that also, is one of those dynamics, I'm trying to explore a little bit here, in the novel, where issues come in of the group that feels that they're, they're helping someone else, but the other group might feel they're being condescended to, you know, and that's, you know, if you're not an equal status, then it's very hard to find the right dynamics. So when he makes friends with Michael, which is, which is a kind of a difficult, challenging friendship all the way through right to the end of the book. And partly because Michael's kind of a quirky guy, you know, he's, it's, it's not so straightforward and so simple for him, either. But that's also part of the challenge of growing up is starting to deal with people who are more complex. And and maybe they don't want you to try to figure them out. Maybe they just want you to be to be there as a friend, without understanding everything they do, or why they do it says, so to get a lot of these things, I think what you go through and adolescence as a teenager, and sometimes into your early 20s as well, trying to figure out social dynamics, but you know, here it's beginning or you're beginning to be aware of it. I mean, you've been doing it your whole life, truthfully, because kids have dynamics, even when they're very young, even younger than this, but they're always going on we become more aware of them and become more aware that you have a role in impacting how these things play out.
One other theme in the book is Adams brother Seth who is involved in a group to free Soviet Jewry. So can you talk about what was going on with that at the time?
Well, I think I mean, Seth is a member of Betar, which is a militant Zionist youth movement. And they're involved with protest actions on behalf of Soviet Jewry, I think what was happening, you know, I mean, to circle back to what we talked about earlier, the, the American Jewish community also was feeling more confident. I mean, 1970 71, this is three, four years after the Six Day War. So we're still kind of riding the high of, of the pride in Israel. And it's a you know, power, the sense that Jews can have power as well. Remember big posters in our house and my brother put up a Jewish power, they were kind of modeled on Black Power posters. And a lot of Soviet Jewry, posters and buttons that we had in the house, because my brother was in Betar those, Seth is somewhat model that I'm not exactly. And this is Adams first experience of any kind of social action of any kind of political action. And, I mean, it's also the time of Vietnam. So the country is very divided over Vietnam, can state it's a couple of years after the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Robert F. Kennedy. So So there's, you know, also a sense of, kind of on one side of, of things falling apart. And then the other side, you know, the year before we'd landed on the moon, there was a sense, we could do anything. And they were both existing at the same time and pulls in two different directions. But this is the first time Adam learns about the Soviet Jewry movement is reading a book by Elie Wiesel, and there's Jews of Silence. And there's another book that plays a central role in the, in the novel because Adam stages a version of Elie Wiesel's novel Dawn, short novel about a young survivor, who's, who was asked to, to guard a police sergeant who's been captured taken prisoner by the underground because the British are planning to execute members of the underground at dawn. And if the British don't free those prisoners, they're gonna execute this guy at dawn to and this young man, Elisha is the one given that job to watch him for the night. And if he doesn't get a word, otherwise to execute him at dawn, which is quite a thing to ask for a teenage survivor. So So Adam has rested he you know, he's he's staging that book, as a player, but he's also read the book, the Jews, the silence, so he learns about this about Soviet Jews. And I think American Jews at that moment, felt confident enough to have our own political cause. Here we were in the middle of the fight about Vietnam and civil rights and urban discord, all kinds of things going on in the country. Nixon was president, you know, it was a very unsettled time. But the Jews, American Jewish community felt like, hey, we were we were too passive during the Holocaust, or we didn't have enough influence during the Holocaust. But now we're established now we're strong now we're here now we have a strong Israel, we have our own country also. But we can make a statement in America and we can lead the fight to free the Jews of the Soviet Union. And that was really unprecedented for American Jewry to take such a public stand on an issue that was particular to the American to the to the Jewish community, not just the American Jewish community, obviously, the global Jewish community and American Jews took a really important leadership role in that whole in that whole struggle and then all battle you know, you you hear it from the people who back then were refuseniks, like Natan today, Natalya Sheransky you know, who's, who's here in Israel, and became the Speaker of the Knesset and ran the Jewish Agency, you know, and wrote a wonderful book with my friend, Gil Troy, that nine years in the Gulag nine years in the Knesset and nine years in the Jewish Agency about these three different very different parts of his life. But for us, that was also a place where we, you know, we had solidarity Sunday, and no 1000 10s of 1000s, or hundreds of 1000s of Jews would gather in Manhattan and protest. You know, eventually, we also had the salute to Israel Day Parade. Now this these are these big public events with the whole Jewish community in New York City came out and made their presence felt. And that was, that was pretty new, you know, that time so I think Adam gets kind of brought into this through his brother who's five years older, so he's much more politically aware, and he's about to deal with what he's going to do they get drafted from Vietnam, and then Adam, so he's 12 or 13. These aren't immediate issues for him yet, but this is his only brother's only sibling. So he is actually forced to think about these things. My own brother was in Betar in those days, I eventually joined Young Judea. So I was at a different youth movement. But but that became very central to my life afterwards.
So you mentioned that this is a lot of comedy in the book. And a lot of that comes from the cantor, who, as you said, is a real larger than life character. Can you talk about him and the influence he has, and Adam and on the other kids in the bar mitzvah class?
Well, he kind
of takes him under his wing as his special project. And he knows that
much to Adam's dismay, yes,
initially, Adam was not very happy about this. And, and Adam is not much of a singer. But he has been going to junior congregation through most of elementary school. So he's he is used to being on the Bema and leading the service to some degree, but a service for kids. And as his bar mitzvah, he's going to be asked to do this in the main sanctuary, which is a different building as a fancy new modern building made of glass and steel and stone and, and it's much more intimidating. And unlike most of the kids who are going to do the Haftorah, they'll read thereafter, they'll learn how to say before and after the Haftorah that was sort of the standard practice back into conservative shuls. And the day, the cantor encourages Adam to lead the entire service, to learn to read the entire Torah reading, and to lead the service the t'fillah to learn to lead the prayer services as well as the shaliach tsibur. And, you know, here's a kid who is not much of a singer, I mean, he's, you know, he can lead a little bit into higher engagement. But now he's got to do it in front of everybody. And he's got to learn. In addition to the Haftorah, he's got to learn how to read the Torah, which is much more difficult. Because the way you it's a different musical notation. And anyone who's ever read from the Torah knows, there are no vowels. There's no punctuation and the musical notation that you have in your book, when you're even after it isn't there, you've got to memorize it all, you got to remember exactly where this the first is where the sentences begin and end and how you're saying it. So Adams got to go through that. And again, I tried to share a little bit of that experience without getting too detailed and, you know, bog the reader down but a little bit what that's like for a kid to learn that stuff. And I did learn that at that age, I eventually taught it to a lot of other kids, including my own when I was older. But the cantor kind of adopts Adam, and they spend a lot of time together because he's teaching him so much of the service. The cantor is a big strong guy, kind of a bull in a china shop, presents, and they develop very special connection. And this is the cantor was kind of inspired by the cantor that I grew up with who was Murray Bayesian, Zichrono livracha [of blessed memory], it's not exactly him. Again, none of the characters even if they are based on someone, and a lot of the characters are wholly invented. But none of them are exactly the people that were their sources of inspiration. But he, he kind of teaches them a different way of being in the world. I mean, the cantor has also a survivor. He's from Romania in the novel, and went through some very difficult things there, and had to survive in the tough streets of Romania, but also New York City. And he's Orthodox and dresses in black and white with a hat and, you know, stands out and gets hassled for it, but he's not afraid of anybody. And so again, these things attract Adam, even though Adam can't quite play that role. But he's drawn to it. It's another image of being powerful. It's another image of being present. But they can't it's also very spiritual, which, you know, I mean, Adam doesn't become particularly religious or spiritual, but he does, through this connection, feel more part of the community. And the cantor has a different take on the Jewish experience, because, you know, Adams has grown up until up until this point, in a fairly safe, protected environment. And the cancer has seen a lot more harsh things in his life already. And he doesn't want Adam to have to go through anything similar. But, you know, he's, he's much more pessimistic about human nature based on what he's been through. But he wants to help this kid and they have some of the impacts of adventures kind of Adam character gets sucked into some of Adam's adventures and vice versa, during the course of the novel, so that's,
they play ball during their lessons or after their lessons.
Right, right. Right, right. The cantor takes off his socks and they use the socks and they play basically playing soccer with with a pair of socks, which I did in real life. So that was, you know that so, but it's another way that they connect. And so he's he's a very strong influence. And then Adam's acting teacher also connects to him in another way, because Adam turns out to be very good actor. And acting really opens him up. And then Adam discovers it getting to know the acting teacher that that adults have their own aspirations and dreams and that adults are not necessarily all locked into what they're doing with their jobs. And this acting teacher wants to be an actor, he doesn't want to be a drama teacher he wants to be an actor off Broadway or on Broadway, it says so. So that's also a revelation for him. And they have old experiences going on in parallel, as Adam gets more drawn into into theater.
Yeah. And you mentioned that earlier that he was lucky enough to kind of find his people, you know, a lot of people don't find their their niche until high school, college beyond college. So he was lucky in that way. So it sounds like you've lived a lot of this. But did you have to do research as well?
Yeah, I mean, I did. I did research on the period on things that were going on in the Jewish community. I mean, also read about black Jewish relation to African Americans in the Jewish community, what the dynamics were at that time, I read some things about anti semitism was going on. I mean, I went back to check the politics too, because I was I was a kid I was not that aware of, of the the politics from year to year. So I was trying to make sure that I had some of the right things. In the years, a good friend of mine pointed out that I had, I had added reading comic books that weren't published at the time. So so so we, we changed it, we went back and change it to make sure that everything was everything was exactly right. So he he was even more on top of that I was a kid who was very into comic books. And that's one of the bonds Adam has was created with Suvan. They're both fans actually, of Sherlock Holmes and Adam tries to get Suvan interested in comic books, which he, he finds to be kind of childish. And, you know, that's, that's part of it, too. It's, it's, it's, it's like, what Adam is trying to figure out what belongs to childhood and what belongs to adulthood. You know, you have comic books on one hand, and Playboy, real fiction, novels and plays, you know, which of these things you take on? So it's, so he's, he's trying to navigate all that.
So was there anything in your research that surprised you?
I really didn't know all of the history of the of the battle over the the teacher strike and Oceanville, Brownsville and United Federation of Teachers. I mean, I remember that it happens. But I so so I was surprised to discover how have bitter that was, and how some of those incidents resonated for years or decades afterwards, you know, and again, there are different interpretations. And there's different accounts. And, you know, I don't know that what is more persuasive than another of what was going on. Then, also, I looked up some, you know, I did some of the research on the Soviet Union and what was happening in the Soviet Union movement at that time. I mean, they they mentioned the, the group of Jews who had attempted to hijack a plane to go to Sweden, but they were arrested before they could do this. And several of them were sentenced to death. And there was, that was one of the things that inspired it was called the Leningrad 14 outcry is to try to at least get the Soviet government to commute those sentences to imprison, which is what happened in the end. And in the end, those people got out many years later. But that became a cause that became a rallying cry. Because here were Jews being sentenced to death, because they really wanted to just leave and go to Israel, but you couldn't leave the Soviet Union, that was the perfect society, if you were leaving, you're showing that it wasn't perfect wasn't utopia, and the Jews would ask permission to, to leave, lose their jobs and would lose their or be thrown out of university. And when I did eventually go visit some Soviet Jews in 1981, which was still six years before glastnost, those were things completely changed. And, you know, and saw firsthand what some of them were living through and what they had. So So I did some reach outs and that also just to try to get the time's right that I wasn't writing things that were happening earlier or later and, you know, try to at least be factually accurate and the rest was either from my imagination or memory or, you know, sent in when I was writing the book, I also talked to people that I knew then some of who I reconnected, you know, today, either through emails, Facebook, whatever, you know, you can find find people always within us to be able to and some of them shared their experiences what it was like back then and some of that I put in the book is some of that stuff. I mean, there's several stories or care incidents that were things that other people told me about, that they had lived through, or that had happened to them. So that helped fill in some of the background and also give it a different perspective. So and some had some great stories and anecdotes that are in there.
Is there anything that you would like to talk about that I haven't thought to ask you about?
Well, look, I think this is a this is as as we said, as it is funny, the book is funny. And I think it's, I think also a lot of these identity questions are comical, as we try to navigate who we are and trying to figure out who we are. And you see this kid's identity developing through the through the course of the book. So often in, in the fiction, I read about American Jews when I was growing up, some of which was really brilliant writing, American Jewish institutional life was ridiculed. No, it was Hebrew school was seen as ridiculous, either backward or just foolish. Bar Mitzvahs were often portrayed as just kind of celebrations of materialism. And that was not at all my experience. Now, it doesn't mean I didn't have my own criticisms, when I was a kid, and I didn't have my own, you know, pushback against things. And just having to go to Hebrew school three more days a week after school and go into junior congregation on Sunday, there were certainly times that I just had enough and you know, wish I could just be left alone, like the other kids who come home from school and be done. But, but on the other hand, it was an incredibly enriching, second world for for me, and hopefully, you feel that in the book for Adam as well, that this this other world that he has, that's particular in the Jewish community, gives him a lot, it helps. It's a place where he feels recognized and appreciated. It's a place where his values are formed, as well, where you talk about things like that, more than you actually would do in elementary school and public school. And there's a kind of a dialogue going on between these two worlds, because he's, he's spends part of his time in this specifically Jewish community, which is for him, formative and enriching. And he spends most of his time in the general community, which is the world that he lives in, you know, and I think that's, that gives a lot to him and helps him be able to deal with get ready to deal with adult life much better. So you only 13 At the end of the book, he's still a kid. And, and he's very aware of the fact that even though he is considered a man now in the Jewish community, that nothing really is going to change that much in his life. And yet, a lot of things have changed. So it's getting prepared for young manhood. You know, that's, that's what's coming in. And he, and he gets that it gets that, you know, it's why they didn't write this book in the first person. Because I didn't want to be locked into a 12 year olds voice. I wanted to be able to go in and out of that 12 year old view, and hopefully, at times you can you feel it, and sometimes, you know, probably has thoughts that are more appropriate to slightly older kid, but I wanted to get you know, he's a bright kid. He's a sensitive kid, he's he's, he's got good antennae picks up a lot of things. And you see him trying to put things together. But I also wanted the chance as the writer to zoom out, and either use a authorial omission voice, or hearing there, hear there, because it's not very much in the book, but here and there to go into the head of one of the other characters, and you get a little more of an adult perspective on things so so hopefully, you know, enjoyable and people can fall in love with Adams journey and his unrehearsed adventures.
Yeah, well, that's one thing that I loved were those two perspectives, because a lot of times, books which focus on kids have only ineffectual or absent adults, or, you know, actively trying to thwart the kids, you know, and so you have, you know, this cast of supportive adults, you know, so even though they aren't the main focus, they're still there, supporting him, you know, while living their own lives.
Yeah, and look, that's part of it. I mean, a lot of children's literature is about kids go and this I mean, this is a book for adults. It's written for adults, too. You know, and I, I it's not a story about a kid who's abandoned by adults, he's, he's surrounded by adults. I mean, there's sometimes pulling them in different directions. And he's got to figure that out. But you know, there's a lot of adults that have ultimately good intentions, that is the adults themselves don't see everything in it. Each of them has their own set of blinders on. And Adams got to start, he's starting to notice that he's starting to notice that adults themselves don't know everything. You know, as a kid, you certainly when you're a young child, you think your parents know, you know, if you have loving parents, they know everything, they're there, they have all the knowledge and all the wisdom, they figured it all out. And maybe when you were up, you'll you'll have it all to be certain you don't have it now. But I think at this age, you start to realize, oh, adults are human beings, and they're not perfect. And yet, they still have a lot to give me or I have, I have a lot to learn from them. And sometimes I can I also disagree with him. I can also push back and I can say no, that I understand what you're saying. But no, that's not right. That's not what I'm seeing. And, and you start to question that and you start to put that to the test your life. So I think that's, that's part of what he's doing. Especially because he's a kid who adults, like, he's a kid that adults connect to for for all different reasons. So he's comfortable with adults, and yet, he's also aware
that they're not equals. He's very conscious of that. And,
and that, and he's got to figure out what they want, and what they want from him. But you know, there's, they're basically Well, meaning older mentor figures in the books, although they're different. No, and they, and the each of them hopefully, is very distinct different character than the two parents, even to parents who are two educators in the same household. And the two parents have very different takes on what's happening in America, what happened to them in the couple of years since the teacher strike, you know, and the Father is reinforcing his very strong liberal values. And the mother is really questioning them, she was really hurt by what happened during the strike. And she's kind of pulling back away from that and thinking, well, maybe, maybe this isn't so right. Maybe we have to be more activist for ourselves. And there's a tension there as well. So it's, it's again, that's, that was a way I was trying to bring in some of the outside world into Adams inner world, because I think that's kind of the what the book is all about. It's about a kid starting to discover the outside world, and that he has to take a stand sometimes, I mean, not that they're waiting to hear what a 13 year old has to say about politics in America, but But you know, it's affecting him as well. And he's got to figure out where he fits in all this and what he believes.
So do you have any projects in the works that you would like to mention?
Sure, I have a podcast called Futterman's one man show, which are autobiographical models kind of done as, as little audio pieces. So there's six episodes up, now we're just finishing seventh and eighth, each two episodes is kind of one, one long story. And some of those were adapted from one man shows I used to do on stage because I was actually an actor and performer for many years. In some of those original pieces I've just been writing now. So so that you can just find online, where you can go to my website, Donfutterman.com. There's some stuff about the book. And eventually, I have some things with the podcast on there as well. I'm just finishing an audio play, which is also a lot of stuff on radio and podcasts in the last bunch of years. So just finishing a radio play, and hopefully we'll get that produced as well. And working on the next novel, but I won't, I won't talk about how it's much too early. But, but hopefully, hopefully that I have to I have two children's books out in Hebrew. So if listeners can read Hebrew there, they were both published here in Israel, but for very beginning readers. So you know, one is 380 words long and what is 700 words long. So these are very short, but with wonderful, wonderful illustrations. I was really blessed to have a magnificent Illustrator to both of these kids books.
What are those titles?
One is called Ha-Otsar shel Yaniv, Yaniv's treasure and the other is Ad le-Ma'alah. It means literally up up to the heights, but in English, calling it up and over. So that one's about a girl who climbs up on a slide or as we call it a New York City, a sliding pound up the ladder, I discovered only only in New York guarantee people call it that. If she goes up the ladder, and she suddenly gets scared of heights and she freezes on the ladder. And the line of kids behind her grows so long that it causes a traffic jam in the city. People have to come out and the Mayor has to try to encourage her to come down. so that was published by the PJ library Hebrew, PJ Pajama last year. So so that was distributed 140,000 preschoolers in Israel, which is probably by far the widest distribution I'll ever have. And the other book was was put up by tell my publishers in Israel as well. So that's also for beginning readers about I have two bro thers, and they're in preschool and one of them is trying to increasingly pack up all of his things into his knapsack to take to preschool with him. And every day, it's getting bigger and bigger and bigger, and there's just no no room for it anymore. That's his treasure that he's taking with him every day. So, so those are so there's a children's books out as well.
Wonderful. So I like to give everyone a minute soapbox moment to either using your book as a base or just talk about anything you want as a call to action for tikun olam for repairing the world.
Oh, well, look right now, obviously with what's going on in Israel. There's a lot to repair.
We're right about three months after October 7 Right now, right?
Yes. And so So I mentioned two things. One is a Fund for rehabilitation of K'far 'Azza, which is one of the kibbutsim that was that was destroyed and many members are killed or kidnapped. And I think you'll find that through JGive or other platforms. It's K'var 'Azza the name, it's the name of the village of Azur right outside of Gaza. So that would be one thing people are interested in getting involved with it or contributing to it, that would be great. Also the organization that direct Israel Center for Educational Innovation, we work in more than 50 Low Income elementary schools underperforming elementary schools to turn them around. And we also have a special phone because some of those schools have been dealing with the you know, the the after effects of the war, or some schools in Ashkelon, we're getting very heavily attacked by rocket fire for months. So those would be great places if anybody wants to, to contribute something there, you can do it through the new Israel fund, or PDF or other or other channels. So those are those would be great.
Okay, great. I'll put links in the show notes. Terrific. And what is the best way to contact you? Would that be through your website?
Yeah,
yeah, the best way there's contact information on the website, and just it's just my name, DonFutterman.com And there you'll find me or if you need to find my publicist who's terrific and find her or, as well, and I hope people will read Adam unrehearsed.
Well, thank you so much. Dan Federman for speaking with me about Adam unrehearsed, as I said, you know, one of the most engaging young kids I've read in a long time, and here's hoping for some peace in the world.
Yeah, absolutely. We could use it. Thank you so much.
If you are interested in any of the books we discussed today, you can find them at your favorite origin brick or online bookstore, or at your local library. Thanks to Die Yankie for use of his fraleigh which definitely makes me happy. This podcast is a project of the Association of Jewish libraries. And you can find more about it at WWW dot Jewish libraries.org/nice Jewish books. I would like to thank AJL and my podcast mentor Heidi Rabinowitz. Keep listening for the promo for her latest episode.
