It is well recognized that the community that opens the same book closes it in greater harmony.

The Day School is fortunate to be among a select group of community day schools chosen to pilot the ONE BOOK, ONE SCHOOL initiative co-sponsored by Nextbook, RAVSAK (The Jewish Community Day School Network) and the Keren Keshet Foundation. Using the Jewish Encounters series published by Nextbook, ONE BOOK, ONE SCHOOL is intended to foster community in the context of Jewish culture, history and ideas.

The Day School is the only school in Chicago that is involved in this exciting and exceptional program.

The next book the Day School will feature in our ONE BOOK, ONE SCHOOL book club series is Barney Ross by Douglas Century. Our book club discussion of Barney Ross will take place on Monday, July 28.

Barney Ross's story is the stuff of legend.

At 13, Dov-Ber Rasofsky witnessed his father's murder, his mother's nervous breakdown, and the dispatching of his three younger siblings to an orphanage. Vowing to reunite the family, Ross became a petty thief, a messenger boy for Al Capone, and, eventually, an amateur boxer. Turning professional at 19, he would capture three titles in his 10-year career.

In 1941, at the age of 32, Ross requested combat duty in the U.S. Marine Corps and earned a Silver Star for his heroic actions at Guadalcanal. While recovering from war wounds and malaria he became addicted to morphine, a habit he would finally kick. Ross also ran guns to Palestine and offered to lead a brigade of Jewish American war veterans.

This galvanizing account of Ross' emblematic life is a revelation of both an extraordinary athlete and a remarkable man.

MORE INFORMATION:

Click here to learn more about Nextbook, and here to read more about Nextbook's One Book program.

Click here to read an interview with author Douglas Century about his book and subject, Barney Ross, and here to read an excerpt from the book.

Day School Parents:
To sign up for this book club and unique opportunity,
to get more information about the book or the program at the Day School,
or to order a discounted copy of Barney Ross,
please e-mail Rena Citrin at rcitrin [*A*T*] bzaeds [dot] org.

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For our Spring 2008 book club selection, the book the Day School chose was Emma Lazarus by Esther Schor.

(From the NextBook website): Emma Lazarus was a woman so far ahead of her time that we are still scrambling to catch up with her. Before these categories even existed, Lazarus was a feminist, a Zionist, and an internationally famous Jewish-American writer. Drawing upon a cache of personal letters undiscovered until the 1980s, Esther Schor brings this vital woman to life in all her fascinating complexity, combining a scholar's familiarity with Lazarus's world with a poet's sympathy for her subject.

MORE INFORMATION:

Click here to learn more about Nextbook, and here to read more about Nextbook's One Book program.

Click here to read an interview with author Esther Schor about her book and its fascinating subject, Emma Lazarus, and here to read an excerpt from the book.

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Here at the Day School, we kicked off our participation in ONE BOOK, ONE SCHOOL with a parent book group, which met Sunday, December 2 to discuss Marc Chagall by Jonathan Wilson.

Forever associated with dreamy, whimsical canvases of lovers and fiddlers on roofs, Chagall was a complicated figure of contradictions. His work reflected the anxieties, sorrows, and headiness of these transformative events. Wilson’s examination of Chagall’s long life reads like a novel as it traces the artist’s career and reflects the story of the modern Jewish people. The book is truly accessible to all readers, and Library Media Specialist Rena Citrin "couldn't put it down!"

MORE INFORMATION:

Click here to learn more about Nextbook, and here to read more about Nextbook's One Book program.

Click here to read an interview with author Jonathan Wilson about his book and its main subject, Chagall, and here to read the author's introduction to the book.

Click here to read about and see samples of Chagall's work from the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), and here to view some examples from the collection at the Tate Gallery.