An Evening with Author and Former Friends Teacher Judy Sandler

Friends School of Baltimore will welcome former third grade teacher, parent of alumni, and wife of alumnus Joseph (Skip) Klein III ’79, Judy Sandler P’10, ’12, ’19, back to campus on Thursday, September 10, for an evening featuring a reading, conversation, and signing of her new memoir, What Kind of Mother. 

For Sandler, choosing Friends as the setting for her Baltimore book launch was deeply personal.

"My family’s history at Friends School is deep; it goes back two generations and includes 10 people in our family attending the school in the last eighty years. By the time I applied for, and got the job to teach third grade in the Lower School at Friends, all three of my children were attending the School and it felt like coming home…The people at Friends School of Baltimore—my colleagues, my students, and the rhythm of my days there while I taught third grade—provided for me a safe place; a harbor, while I raised my children…I chose Friends as my Baltimore book launch because it feels like home to me—and who doesn’t want to be welcomed home?"

In What Kind of Mother, Sandler shares a mother's experience navigating her son's descent into severe mental illness. The memoir traces her journey from initially confronting substance use and a later bipolar disorder diagnosis to reckoning with the limits of what a parent can do for a struggling child. Through her family's experience, Sandler explores denial, grief, acceptance, and the difficult realization that loving someone does not always mean being able to save them.

An Evening with Judy Sandler will take place from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, September 10, in the Zamoiski Alumni Center. The evening will include a reading from What Kind of Mother, a conversation and Q&A with Sandler, and a book signing.

Copies of What Kind of Mother will be available for purchase at the event from The Ivy Bookshop and are available now for pre-order.

Please RSVP to attend An Evening With Judy Sandler.