Alina Adams Media

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

07/14/2025

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Emma said to the man who owned the means of production at a Socialist workers meeting.

“Your husband is doing terrific work. His first show ranked third overall for the week. We can’t wait to see what he comes up with next!”

“That is very kind of you,” Emma said to the man at the Socialist workers meetings who was raking in advertising revenue based on her husband’s labor. Though Dennis’ actual show had no commercials – Soviet Central Television had insisted on it – there were ads at the beginning and at the end – Soviet Central Television had insisted on splitting the profits.

A Literal Literary Loser Jumps on the Bandwagon

07/01/2025

Were you just thinking: I would love to listen to Alina talk some more but, boy, do I wish I could do it outside? Maybe on a roof?

Have I got the event for you! Please join me and fellow author David Denby at Ansche Chesed on Monday, July 14 at 7 PM for Scribblers on the Roof. And, yes, there will be wine!

RSVP at:

Monday evenings 7pm: Schmooze and Wine 7:15pm: Program   Join us to hear renowned Jewish writers read from and discuss their recent work on the Ansche Chesed roof. Beverages, snacks and books are available for purchase. If it rains, come anyway. We have a perfect indoor space. New this year! New st...

06/25/2025

"Go On Pretending," released on May 2025 is at #27 in Amazon Historical Russian Fiction Bestsellers, while "The Nesting Dolls," released July 2020 is at #29. I wonder if the older work is creating interest in the new one, or vice-versa?

06/24/2025

I discuss the Jewish Autonomous Region, Jews who bought Soviet lies, in*******al and interfaith relationships, and all sorts of other equally non-controversial things at The Jewish Lens podcast!

Listen at:

Join author Jonathan Rosen, as he chats with the author of Go on Pretending, Alina Adams!Alina discusses her book Go on Pretending, writing for Soap Operas,...

06/22/2025

My last kid just graduated. Why I am not going to stop advocating for better schools, and why parents need all voters to get involved:

Adams: There's still so much to do to make education better. But families can't do it alone. Parent or not, everyone has a stake in the schools.

06/21/2025

When two of my kids urged me to read "All the Other Mothers Hate Me," I had to yield to their wishes. But what I found was a story where it seems to be the opposite. Flo's son attends a very "posh" (they're in England) all-boys school where his father also went. (Relatable.) But instead of all the other mothers hating Flo, it seems, instead, that Flo hates them. They barely say a word to her. She spends the book thinking about how this one is stuck up, and this one has had too much plastic surgery, and this one's kid is a brat. She, of course, is free-spirited and bohemian and down to Earth. Who cares if her kid is late to school every day? Who has time for such nonsense when you're busy being original and quirky, not like the stuffy other moms? So who is intolerant of whom, exactly? In addition, I was expecting a social satire, but it quickly turned into a mystery thriller, a genre that I like, but it had little to do with how any other parent feels about Flo.

A mom will do anything to save her kid. Anything. "The missing boy is 10-year-old Alfie Risby, and to be perfectly honest with you, he's a little s**t." Florence Grimes is a thirty-one-year-old party...