Having grown up on stories of her mother’s wild youth in California, Elena Berg relocated from New England to the Bay Area in 2011 for a placement as an English teacher with Teach for America. Once there, she is eager to inspire a love of poetry and literature in her students. Her own grandfather — a Holocaust survivor — was a storyteller and teacher who touched the lives of his students for years to come.
But Elena quickly finds herself feeling disconnected from teaching, unable to inspire her students, and before long, she grows disillusioned with her career. She transitions to a role in an education technology startup — though she questions her decision, her motivations, and her values.
Coming of age between the Occupy and #MeToo movements and against the backdrop of the 2016 election and California’s ever-worsening fire season, Elena reckons with California as she imagined it and California as it really is. As she does so, she must also ultimately reconcile the person she envisioned herself to be with the person she actually is.
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Fiction
California Dreaming
- From the Publisher
September 1, 2023
Discussion Questions
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