Alina Adams Media

01/02/2026

Been fighting for 20 years and I have no intention of stopping now. Comrades, I shall see you at the barricades!

The rationale for this proposed change is that it will benefit marginalized children. Except that it won’t. We know it won’t. It will, instead, hurt precisely those it’s supposed to help.

11/15/2025

You know your child is gifted, but what do you need to do to prove it to the New York City Department of Education? What school options does your child have... and how do you get them in? I explain all this and more on Tuesday. Space is extremely limited. RSVP at:

Archives New York City is getting a new mayor in 2026. We have received multiple queries about what this means for elementary school Gifted & Talented programs, middle school Screened and Honors programs, and Specialized and Screened High Schools. Join Alina Adams, author of “Getting into NYC Kind...

11/14/2025

For the 100th anniversary of Jewish Book Council's , I am going to post video reviews my daughter and I did of Soviet-Jewish books. Up first, Maria Kuznetsova. Please help spread the word!

Odessa, USSR born Alina Adams attempts to explain the Soviet Union to her American-born daughter via novels and non-fiction. This week's title, is "Something...

11/02/2025

Vogue has enlightened me that "having a boyfriend is embarrassing now." You are also supposed to crop husbands out of your social media photos to prove... something. Women having a partner is a "contentious concept within public life." As is well known about me, I am all about internet trends and caring what other people - especially strangers - think of my life choices. Ergo, behold:

A Literal Literary Loser Explains the Difference

09/03/2025

Thank you to NBC New York for this lovely piece about NYC School Secrets:

As back-to-school season arrives across the tri-state area, the process of getting kids into New York City schools can be tough for parents to navigate. One woman says she has the secrets to getting students into their dream schools — and for her, it’s a money maker. Tracie Strahan introduces us...

08/24/2025

Hillary B. Smith talks Bo and Nora's rock and roll wedding:

The wedding was interfaith and that was very unique, because Nora was the only Jewish character on television at that time, and she’s still the only Jewish woman on daytime.

We had one day on set for it – it was going to be a long day – and we had Little Richard planned. We got there early in the morning, and we were getting everything else out of the way first. We got up there to rehearse, and Little Richard turned around and said, “Oh, by the way,” – this is about at 5 o’clock in the afternoon – “I have to be somewhere at seven.” And everyone sort of stared at him and said, “Are you kidding?” We weren’t even in hair and make-up or anything like that yet. We were like, “What?”

And so they had to quickly tape all of his scenes. I mean all of them, everything that he said, everything that he did, they had to tape. They held up cue cards and one of them said, “Hey, Bo and Nora,” and then, in parentheses (To The Crowd), “We can’t let these people get away.” And so he said, “Hey, Bo and Nora! To the crowd! We can’t let these people get away!” He read everything on the cue card.

Read her entire story, as well as dozens more at:

From the first radio soap opera in 1930 to network television and streaming today, daytime dramas have been full of heart-tugging, heart-breaking, and heart-stopping moments, storylines, and performances. But which can be classified as the very, very best of the genre? NYT best-selling author of...

08/17/2025

You won't believe how many gifted kids NYC has - or how they're identified! What this means for educating all American kids at:

Adams: Letting educators evaluate students has led to many more being flagged for G&T. That alone could set them up for greater academic success.

08/06/2025

Soft launch and you're the first to know! "My Mother's Secret: A Novel of the Jewish Autonomous Region" is now an audiobook! What was it? Where was it? Why was it? Find out at:

My Mother's Secret: A Novel of the Jewish Autonomous Region (Audiobook) - NYC School Secrets

08/05/2025

After listening to my husband and I explain why we are the most perfect couple ever, how we got that way, and how we intend to stay that way, please let me know if this has made you:

A) More likely to buy all my books

B) Less likely to buy all my books

C) Wonder why anyone ever allowed me to write books

D) Give up reading books all together in protest

A Literal Literary Loser Changes Course

07/24/2025

Mayor Eric Adams and Schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos just announced an updated “Cell Phone and Electronic Device Policy,” the implementation of which will provide for a citywide standard for distraction-free schools starting this coming academic year. This change — part of proposed amendments to Chancellor’s Regulation A-413 — was approved by the Panel for Educational Policy (PEP) tonight.

Here is what parents had to say about it a year ago when the issue first came up, via The 74:

Adams: Social media addiction, student mental health, anonymous nastiness online, teachers as smartphone cops: why families say a ban is a good idea.

07/24/2025

Read the report by Alina Adams Media here https://open.substack.com/pub/families4newyork/p/why-nyc-jewish-families-are-choosing?r=kg901&utm_medium=ios

07/16/2025

"We transitioned to a private school and have been independent ever since. No government bureaucrat is going to keep us from teaching our collective values!”

“So now the school is paid for by the Socialist Workers Party?”

“In part. And, of course, everyone pays their fair share in tuition, we’re very cooperative.”

“In America, you pay for school? How much does it cost?”

“A few thousand dollars a year, we do our best to keep tuition as low as possible, so that the children can interact with peers from all walks of life. That’s very important to us.”

“They do not have free schools in America? Government schools?”

“I realize this is difficult for you to understand, coming from a classless society, but, the government schools, they’re called public, they are terribly… oh, how can I explain – they’re just terribly middle-class. They teach children bourgeois values like individualism. No surprise, they were established to perpetuate an oppressive, colonialist, capitalist way of life. The only way we can be certain our children value an egalitarian community where all are respected not based on how much money they have but on what they contribute to the greater whole, is by removing them from the brainwashing of our government. We need to protect them from any ideas which might prevent their growing into true revolutionaries, untainted by status quo pablum.”

A Literal Literary Loser Wraps Up