The Book for My Inner Bat Mitzvah Girl: Author Guest Post by Terri Libenson

I was raised as a Conservative Jew. That’s the middle-of-the-road (aka Goldilocks) sect of Jewish observance. Although my conservative synagogue was somewhat traditional, our family happened to be those infamous “twice-a-year” Jews. That is, we’d only go to temple on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, where half the time someone would have to rouse my snoring dad.

Fast forward years later: I married a fellow Jew. This time, from the Reform movement, which I’ve personally found to be more progressive and laid-back. When my husband and I had our daughters, they started attending Hebrew School at our Reform temple. We, as parents, had the option to join them on Sundays to learn (or relearn) Hebrew. So we went! I accompanied my older daughter, and a few years later my husband joined our younger one.

And oh, how I loved it!

This time I was an enthusiastic student. I wanted to be reacquainted with Jewish learning. The teachers and clergy made this so easy (and promoted fun techniques). Our synagogue soon became like a second home. My kids would later join the temple youth group and even become Hebrew School teachers’ aids; they’ve since formed their own strong connections to Judaism. True, as a family, we still don’t celebrate Shabbat or regularly attend services (more due to schedules now), but we’re much more rooted in our faith and culture than I ever was growing up. Visiting Israel sealed the deal for me.

When I became the author of a middle grade series, I knew I wanted to take my daughters’ faith-based experiences as well as my own and mold them into a book. My characters are the perfect age for a bat mitzvah story, and the event itself is the perfect microcosm of adolescence: self-doubt, faith-questioning, and social anxieties, all rolled into one pressure-filled rite of passage. Even my own daughters had many anxieties and concerns about their bat mitzvahs, despite having a strong Jewish upbringing.

But there are oh-so-many wonderful aspects as well! The pride of learning and interpreting the Torah passages, the joyous gathering of community, and the privilege to stand at the pulpit, especially as a female — unheard of until fairly recently! And, hey, let’s not forget the epic party afterward — whether a backyard BBQ or an Oscars-worthy gala.

There was another reason why I wanted to write this book. Scanning the temple library, as well as checking out Jewish-based books, I realized what seemed to be missing from the shelves: real, contemporary, mainstream stories about everyday Jewish kids’ lives. Not that these books don’t exist, of course, but there are just so many about holidays and the Holocaust, it seemed hard to find much else.

So I thought, if I could help fill a void, why not?

Using my family’s experiences and real-life people helped shape the book into what I hope is an authentic reflection of a modern Jewish girl’s experience. It introduces non-Jewish kids to the process in a fun, secular way, and it can be a comfort to kids going through the rigors of having a bar or bat mitzvah.

It’s the book that thirteen-year-old me would have liked, especially as a scared and reluctant bat mitzvah girl. It’s the book that would have made me realize that not only is the journey more meaningful and affirming than I thought it would be…

…but that, no matter what, everything would turn out okay in the end.