**My Set as a Whole**

When choosing books for my book set on Jewish literature, I wanted to be very open to the books and yet critical of their quality and representation of this group. I was very conscious to pick out some books that told about the Jewish culture, including culinary elements, holidays, and of course their religion. I also wanted to focus on young literature connected to Judaism because my internship next year is in a second grade and in general I am interested in teaching K-3.
After reading all of my books and the literary review of one of my books, I found that although there was a good amount of Jewish books available the quality of the literature was just good, although the young adult literature was much easier to find and had a higher quality. It seemed that there were a good amount of books written by outsiders and many lacking accuracy in their depiction of Jewish people and their religion, so it made it a little more difficult to find insider authors.
While reflecting on this book set I realized that a majority of the books also were not about a Jewish person in everyday life but concentrated specifically on how they were different or specifically on their religion. Many of the books strongly emphasized the introducing of the customs that link to being Jewish or the religious aspects of Judaism. “The Truth about My Bat Mitzvah” was the only book where I felt that the book highlighted Judaism and a Jewish character in there everyday life, as well as doing it with great sensitivity and in a relatable way for any reader. Another general observation I made was that all of the books came with a glossary. This was very interesting to me because it highlighted that all of the authors used Hebrew and Yiddish words in their texts, which are not familiar to all readers.
Overall I was very interested in all of my books. I was particularly interested in learning about the Jewish custom and traditions. In fact this year I spent Passover Sedar with my best friend’s family so I was able to experience all of the activities and customs explained in the texts. I made my own Matzo ball soup, listened to the story of Passover in Hebrew, and ate many of the Jewish culinary delicacies. I feel like I have a greater understanding of the Jewish culture and better inept to critique Jewish literature, based on quality and authenticity.