At eleven years old, she was impetuous, naughty, and mischievous. She did not believe in following the rules that she was too young to submit her essay on her love of movies.

This book claims to be nonfiction, presenting the autobiographies of six Jewish youths written in the 1930s when they were mostly 19- or 20-years old, but as I read I started to have a queasy distrust of the presentation, feeling that Ken Krimstein's adaptation was intruding upon or standing between me and the original documents. I was able to find a translation of Beba Epstein's actual autobiography online at https://museum.yivo.org/translations/... and as I read through it I could see the massive liberties Krimstein had taken in his dramatization of it. I assume he did the same to the rest of the "autobiographies," and I just wish he and the publisher had been more upfront about that aspect. It‘s amazing these stories exist. During a cleaning of St George‘s Church, a decommissioned church in Vilna, Lithuania, in 2017, a trove of hidden papers were found in the organ pipes. These were Yiddish biographies of teenagers from the late 1930‘s. They had entered a competition that was never awarded because of WWII. Of course there are no more Yiddish teenagers in Europe. The works were hidden from the Nazis and then the Soviets. Krimstein has illustrated 6. What’s going to happen to the children, when there aren’t any more grownups?” sang Noël Coward, satirising the self-indulgent hedonism of the 1920s. But Coward’s ironic lyrics seem even more relevant today when the traditional values of adulthood, self-control, self-sufficiency and the willingness to take responsibility have become sources of angst rather than a desirable, if difficult, end. So what then, if anything, has been lost? In her book, journalist and psychotherapist Moya Sarner attempts to find answers to this question. In When I Grow Up , Krimstein shows us the stories of these six young men and women in riveting, almost cinematic narratives, full of humor, yearning, ambition, and all the angst of the teenage years. It’s as if half a dozen new Anne Frank stories have suddenly come to light, framed by the dramatic story of the documents’ rediscovery.The nature and the desirability of adulthood is not a straightforward matter in an age in which it is quite possible to spin out childhood to the end of one’s days. Is this good for society? Is it good for the individual? These are non-trivial questions and the answer has to be, as in so many matters: it depends. I feel Sarner is right to believe that there is such a being as a mature adult with a well-preserved and nourishing inner child, rare as this ideal may be. But her book suggests that as a society we are bad at producing these – and that there are too many stranded unhappily in the outreaches of childhood, unable to find any new and sustaining ground. I appreciated, however, that this was not about how these people died but how they lived. In one case a multi-generational tale of a family with eight daughters, in another someone writing letters to be admitted to the United States, in still another a folk singer. Much of what they recount is ordinary teenage stuff along with some of the clash of modernity vs. tradition. In this way it both recreates a lost world and also shows how similar that world is to our own.

I’m absolutely delighted to welcome Faithful+Gould to our collaborative team, made up of organisations and individuals from across the industry who are all working together to promote the industry to the next generation. The support of Faithful+Gould is huge and we hope this will encourage others across the industry to join in supporting When I Grow Up. 🚀 Safer Highways becomes the first organisation to formally announce its public support of the When I Grow Up project which is expected to be embraced by the industry. When I Grow Up seeks to promote the construction industry to children who will hopefully consider a career in the industry in later life. It has a naturally flowing rhyme and meter, and the illustrations are excellent. I was a little disappointed that one of his potential jobs is "master debater." While "Weird Al" has always been generally family-friendly, he isn't exactly squeaky-clean. However, that's the only beef I take with this book and I consider it a pretty minor gripe. On the plus side, with this book I complete one of my many projects for the year. In this case it's reading all the books on NPR's "Books We Love 2021: Favorite Comics and Graphic Novels" list. Having an ear and passion for music, she played the mandolin, sang, and dreamt of enrolling in the Music Conservatory until at 19 years old, her hopes were dashed and her music became mournful. Her family was in turmoil having been torn apart by drinking, abandonment, divorce, theft, and imprisonment.Readers will recognize themselves in these stories—some of the content is very specific to time, place, and culture, but much of it is universal to the young person’s experience—hopes and dreams for the future, struggles with school and parents, crushes, attempts to forge an identity, friendships made and broken. When I Grow Up’ and Safer Highways are delighted to announce a partnership which will see a collaborative approach help the social value initiative reach as many children as possible. The Rule Breaker — a 11-year-old girl enters the contest even though she isn’t old enough, and she is the only one of the six in which we know their fate A 20-year-old boy wrote of his infatuation with a girl before immersing himself into his faith to become a Bokher and lamenting his lost youth. The partnership will launch with all attendees at the upcoming Highways Heroes awards receiving a free copy of the When I Grow Up book. The sold out awards evening on 7th December 2022 at JW Marriott Grosvenor House, London provides an excellent platform for showcasing the social value initiative to key individuals from across the industry.