Are you part of a book club or looking to start one? Lake Burntshore by Aaron Kreuter makes a great book club pick!
A comedic and heartrending novel about a summer of momentous change at a Jewish sleepover camp in Southern Ontario’s cottage country. It celebrates, satirizes, and complicates the contemporary Jewish world through the rarefied locale of a Canadian summer camp.
Book Club Questions
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Lake Burntshore is about one summer at a Jewish sleepover camp. Do you relate to the teens and young adults at Camp Burntshore? Does it remind you of your adolescence?
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Among the large cast of characters, which one do you connect with the most? Ruby, the firebrand activist? Etai, the reluctant soldier? Stolow, the stoned musician? Or someone else?
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At the core of Lake Burntshore are the characters’ differing views on politics and Jewish identity. Is this kind of internal conflict something you have experienced in your community?
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Which city do you think makes the best bagels?
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Camp Burntshore is situated next to the fictional Black Spruce First Nation, a relationship that has been friendly but can also be uneasy. Did Lake Burntshore encourage you to think about Canada’s history of colonialism and the path to reconciliation?
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There are a lot of firsts in Lake Burntshore: first kisses, first girl/boyfriends, first jobs, etc. Did any of these remind you of one of your firsts? What do you think it is about adolescence that makes every first so memorable?