The Jake Show
Joshua S. Levy
May 23, 2023 Katherine Tegen Books
240 Books
It is a rare delight to see the author of the book I am currently reading win a National Jewish Book Award for another one of their works which I have reviewed. Last week, while rapidly making my way through The Jake Show by Joshua S. Levy, his latest middle grade novel – Finn and Ezra’s Bar Mitzvah Time Loop – got the nod for MG fiction. I am not surprised. That book was so delightful I went back and found the author’s prior book. Also not a surprise – it too is delightful!
Jake is an epic TV fan. He also has several aliases. As he toggles between living with his orthodox mother and his secular father, he is called Yaakov or Jacob respectively. It’s clear his parents love him, but they each expect Jake to want the same religious practice as they do. Since he doesn’t want to hurt either of them, he lives a double life, practicing orthodoxy with his mother and eating cheeseburgers with his father. It’s like starring in three different TV shows – the striving yeshiva Bochur who wears a black hat and spends his days poring over a Talmud, the up and coming scientist watching television while coding, and the kid who doesn’t want to make friends because the courts keep forcing him to switch schools anyway. Too bad Tehilla and Caleb, two kids from Jake’s new modern orthodox school, didn’t get the memo.
As Jake starts to get close to his two new BFFs, his family life gets worse and worse. Neither of his parents realize how he desperately molds himself to the life of the parent he is with at any given moment. Keeping this a secret is getting harder and harder. How is he supposed to figure out what he wants for himself with all this fighting and pressure? So he concocts the worlds wildest plan to trick his parents into sending him to summer camp with Tehilla and Caleb – a space where he can just be himself for a change.
Levy is particularly strong when it comes to writing madcap hi-jinks. The Shira Club is enough to have anyone rolling in the aisles, and the entire camp episode is one large comedy of errors. Plus, the ridiculousness of color war in a Jewish summer camp seen through the eyes of a first time, thirteen year-old camper is pretty priceless. Yet at the heart of all that hilarity is a core of seriousness. Clearly Jake and his family have some communication issues, but Caleb and Tehilla have a lot going on too – even if Jake is too wrapped up in himself to notice. Particularly brave and moving was the depiction of the fall out for a kid in a modern orthodox school to come out as a gay.
The Jake Show is a quick read, and middle schoolers will fly through it. Even the ones who are reluctant readers, because it is so funny. However, the more contemplative readers will have something to invest in, and maybe even to start a conversation with their parents about. It’s not just a book for children of divorced parents, or gay kids, or poor kids. It’s a book for all kids striving to become compassionate adults – sometimes in spite of inadequate role models. Jake and his friends find their way, but in true camp fashion they do so together, before the parents arrive to pick them up.