I really enjoyed the book, Confessions of a Closet Catholic, by Sarah Darer Littman. I thought that she created a characters that many readers could relate to. Furthermore, she exposed the constructs that it is okay for one to question their religion.
Towards the beginning of the novel, I found the contrast between Jussy's mom and Mac's mom to be somewhat stereotypical. Mac's mom is the "perfect mom" in the "perfect Catholic family" whereas Jussy's mom is the overly clean Jewish mom. It bothered me that Littman portrayed the two characters in this way and I wondered how young readers - especially Jewish readers - would react to this. However, as the book went on, more of the family dynamics were exposed and the conflicts between Jussy and her Mom were eventually resovled.
Another idea that I thought this book dealt with was the idea of religion being arbitrary. Jussy uses grape juice, matza balls, and a teddy bear to represent Catholic icons. I think that one of the themes of this book is that religion is personal and it is whatever a person makes of it. One can follow traditions and norms of certain religions or one can make up their own rituals or follow traditions selectively - any way you do it is fine. This is an imporant idea to get across to young readers who may still be in the mentailty that Catholics can only do this and Protestants can only do that, etc.
Overall, I thought this book posed a lot of insightful questions. It was an enjoyable read and something that I was able to relate to easily.
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I completely agree with your comment about Littman using stereotypical descriptions of Mac and Jussy's mothers. Most of the things said about Jussy's mom was negative which could persuade young readers that because they are Jews that their Judaism religion is not good. In my questioning the text paper I made the same point that religion is determined by the individual person and their views. Overall, I really liked the book as well. I felt the message presented to readers was very important for all religions to understand.
I thought it was interesting that later Mac's mom said that she had been jealous of her Jewish friend, and that her mother had been more like Jussy's (pp 42-3). It helped break up the idea that certain religions produce mothers in a certain mold.
I've been thinking about the theme in the book that religion is personal or that you can make it your own or choose what works for you. For me this feels comfortable, but I wonder what more orthodox Catholics, for example, would make of it? What if part of your belief is that your tradition represents the "truth"?
This book feels "safe" to me because there's a sense that everyone's religion is ok. (I think this is on my mind because I picked up a "Left Behind" book in the YA section of the ELPL the other day.)
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