Children of the Book

There is something so nostalgic about the books we read as children. Every writer has a huge list of books that takes them back to special places and times in their lives. It makes sense that memoir writer Ilana Kurshan, who has essentially built her life and career around books, wants to talk about reading out loud as a means to explore being a mother to five small children. However, she’s not content to simply describe the struggle of squeezing in some reading time while parenting. In Children of The Book, her second memoir, she links her family’s reading to the five books of the Chumash and takes us through both literary and parenting lessons learned through the process of sharing beloved childhood books with the next generation.

As someone who found great meaning in Kurshan’s first book – If All The Seas Were Ink -I was excited for Children of the Book. Once I dove in, I could tell immediately it featured the same erudition – I had to crack open a dictionary at least five times during the reading – but it lacked some of the personal touch of Kurshan’s prior work. That is understandable, because this time around Kurshan is not just writing about herself. She’s writing about her kids. She needs to lean a little sparse on the details in order to protect their privacy. It is an understandable concession, but it takes some of the oomph out of the prose.

Where the book is most successful – in my opinion – was the chapter on Vayikra in which the corona pandemic was compared to the Jews wandering the desert. I fully related to Kurshan running to the library right before lock down, while everyone else was probably running to the grocery store. And yes, books did save the sanity of my isolation pod (although in our case it was audiobooks). I also really loved her honesty – some of the books she read as a youth are not quite the utopias her rosy memories make them out to be. Indeed, her husband challenged her to read critical reviews about Laura Ingalls Wilder and the ‘Little House’ books so that she would know exactly what she was handing her children. I applaud both him and Kurshan for taking that critical look, rather than just glossing it over, and sharing that moment with us.

With five kids, it’s impossible not to note that every person will have their own taste. Or in the case of her twins, might need a series that belongs uniquely to them. For my own part, when Kurshan mentions The Giving Tree, I had a little laugh to myself. I absolutely hate that book and this aversion does not stem from my adult understanding of the complex dynamics of selfishness, parenting, or ecological forces that currently give me pause when I consider the story. I remember a teacher reading The Giving Tree out loud in school, and have a very visceral reaction. Mostly, I felt like I wanted to vomit and cry and hide under my desk. I was so distressed I could not focus for the rest of the day. From then on, whenever I was in a room with that book, I hid it beneath others so it could not distract me from afar. Yet here it was, listed as one of someone else’s favorites. Because we’re all different people, and we bring different things to the books we read, which by necessity means we will take different things from them too. Which is something I try to remind myself when I write these reviews. I’m just one woman, with one small opinion.

Children of the Book is a wonderful book for any bookish parent wondering where in the world the time for reading and writing went. It is also for people without children who want to recall those glorious reading days of their youth. Mostly, it’s for those among us who love reading and want to think about how to transmit this love to the next generation – even if they choose different books than we expect.

Note: BookishlyJewish received a copy of this book from the publisher after we asked for one.

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