The Sydney Taylor Shmooze

Noah and His Wagon by Jerry Ruff, illustrated by Katrijn Jacobs Kalaniot Books (imprint of Endless Mountain), 2025 Category: Picture Books Reviewer: Jeanette Lazar   Buy at Bookshop.org   Several plot lines intermingle to create what becomes a meditation on kindness for the young reader. Noah and His Wagon begins with the story of Paloma, whose best friend has moved away, whose mother rushes off to work, and whose older sister pays more attention to her phone than to her charge. Enter Noah, who's new to the neighborhood but whose wagon seems to be a magnet for those in need. After introductions that include the backstories of Bucket the dog and Mitzvah the cat, we meet Mrs. Willow. Noah helps her with her groceries once a week. The expanding band of do-gooders arrive at the park. There we meet Seymour on the swing. And we find a sad Mikhail in the sandbox. Time for a cookie break for all, that dissolves as the rain begins to fall. That night, As Paloma curls up in bed with Bu...

Shabbat in a Nest by Chris Barash, illustrated by Sydney Hanson PJ Publishing, 2025 Category: Board Books Reviewer: Sarah Clarke Shabbat in a Nest is a sweet board book featuring Yanni, a young owlet, as he shares his favorite time of the week: Shabbat. His family gathers, coming from near and far, to light candles, feast, rest, and spend time together. His uncle comes on Friday night for Shabbat dinner. On Saturday, his aunt and cousins come to play. Yanni’s father tells the owlets a story about King Soloman, as Yanni notes that it’s the only time his father has to tell stories. As night falls, the owls look for the first three stars in the night to signal the end of Shabbat. At the end of the night, after the HavdalahcCandle is put out, Yanni’s family fly off into the night. As Yanni falls asleep, he thinks about the upcoming week, and next Shabbat.  This story is fantastic for young children celebrating Shabbat. The text is clear and concise, and it has a clear perspective tha...

Twist, Tumble, Triumph: The Story of Champion Gymnast Ágnes Keleti by Deborah Bodin Cohen and Kerry Olitzky, illustrated by Martina Peluso Kar-Ben Publishing (imprint of Lerner Publishing Group), 2025 Category: Picture Books Reviewer: Rachel J. Fremmer   Buy at Bookshop.org   This picture book jumps (get it?) right into Ágnes Keleti’s career as a gymnast, showing her training on uneven bars, the balance beam, and the vault. But World War II is raging and Ágnes lives in Budapest, Hungary. Her career as a gymnast is cut short (it seems), when Jews are banned from the gym. But Ágnes survives the war and resumes training, finally winning gold medals at the 1952 and 1956 Games, at the ages of 31 and 35, respectively. The title, while obviously referring to gymnastics moves and Ágnes’s gold medals, also has a second meaning, referring to the twists her athletic career took and the obstacles she had to overcome. This is not quite a picture book biography. The book instead ...

Fighter in the Woods:The True Story of a Jewish Girl Who Joined the Partisans in World War ll by Joshua M. Greene Scholastic Focus, 2025 Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Jeanette Brod   Buy at Bookshop.org The book begins with a dedication to the 1.5 million children who perished in the Holocaust. That’s followed by a dramatic vignette of our heroine in the midst of a partisan raid on a pile of Nazi weapons. The reader catches their breath and is then abruptly transported to the beginning of the story in a small town in Poland on June 22, 1941. The date is significant because it marks the beginning of the German attack on the Soviets. We don’t return to the partisan raid until Chapter 16, when the reader is almost at the end of the book. Fighter in the Woods is the biography of Celia Kassow: how she flees boarding school to rejoin the family, how she joins her family in hiding and in ghettos, how she is hidden in a barn, how she connects with her brothers in the Resistance, and ho...

Max in the Land of Lies: A Tale of World War II by Adam Gidwitz Dutton Books for Young Readers (imprint of Penguin Random House), 2025 Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Kathryn Hall   Buy at Bookshop.org   Max in the Land of Lies is a sequel to Max in the House of Spies and begins in 1940 with Max just outside Berlin, after a parachute drop which left his adult supervisor dead. Max has dybbuk and kobold companions, one on each shoulder, invisible and inaudible to all but Max. They comment, give comic or historical perspective and advice, and sometimes even help. Max is a spy with an official mission, but his secret mission is to find the parents who had sent him to England for safety while they remained in Berlin. What follows is exciting, suspenseful, sad, frightening, heartwarming, and funny. The end is realistic and satisfying. Many of the characters were real people, and the historical accuracy is impressive in a work of fantasy fiction. Ethical dilemmas are explored, and...

Right Back At You by Carolyn Mackler Scholastic, 2025 Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Stacey Rattner   Buy at Bookshop.org If time travel is the new trend in middle grade literature (think 2025 Newbery winner and Sydney Taylor honor winning books) then Right Back at You is trendy. In its own unique way, of course. It’s spring 2023. 12 year old New Yorker Mason has written a letter to Albert Einstein as part of an assignment. Instead of ending up in Einstein’s hands, it appears in baseball-loving 12 year old Talia’s closet in western Pennsylvania in 1987. And so begins a unique friendship that communicates only through letters in a wormhole that spans 36 years and 300 miles. Single child Mason’s father has left home for a bit. Mason is dealing with multiple bullies at school and a mom who is drinking too much. Talia is navigating the relationship with her best friend, and is  the victim of antisemitism that is brushed off by her teacher and administration. Mason and Talia su...