The Sydney Taylor Shmooze

  In the Beginning: My Storybook Bible by Jonathan Shmidt Chapman, illustrated by César Garcés Apples & Honey Press (imprint of Behrman House Publishers), 2024 Category: Picture Books  Reviewer: Dena Bach Buy at Bookshop.org In the beginning of “In the Beginning,” the author, Jonathan Shmidt Chapman, encourages young readers to “Jump right in!” — challenging kids to make the first books of the Hebrew bible their own by listening and imagining. Included in this introduction to the Torah are the familiar, child-friendly stories — creation, Noah’s ark, the beginnings of the Jewish people with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and his children, the freeing of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, until Moses brings them to them promised land. Some stories are expanded with details from outside of the Torah text to make them more familiar or relatable. For example, in the Torah, Noah’s wife, Naamah, is not named, but here she is the first to feel a raindrop before the flood. These details ...

Freedom's Game by Rosanne Tolin Reycraft Books, 2024 Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Julie Ditton Buy at Bookshop.org During World War II, hundreds of Jewish children were hidden in Paris orphanages and schools by the French resistance, and eventually smuggled to safety in Switzerland. Tolin tells a well researched story about two such children. This well paced tale examines the lives and feelings of two children, Ziggy and Elke. Flashbacks take the reader to 1939 and tell how they managed to move from the safety of their homes and families before Hitler's rise, to one refuge after another. With two main characters, the author deftly manages to show the contrasting feelings of realistic pessimism and the hope that keeps these children going. Ziggy is suspicious of the new blonde haired gym teacher Georges Loinger. He claims to be a member of the resistance, but Ziggy wonders if he isn't really a German spy. His friend Elke has faith in Georges and clings to hope that the m...

When We Flew Away: A Novel of Anne Frank Before the Diary by Alice Hoffman Scholastic, 2024 Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Rachel J. Fremmer Buy at Bookshop.org Alice Hoffman brings her trademark magical realism to her version of Anne Frank’s life. The book opens with a fairytale-like prologue which sets the tone, stating “Once there were two sisters. One was beautiful and well-behaved and one saw the future and stepped inside it.” That magical realism continues throughout the book with recurring motifs of black moths, magpies, and rabbits representing the Jews, and wolves representing the Nazis. The main action of the novel begins on “the day everything changed.” Immediately the reader’s curiosity is piqued: which day - other than the day when the Franks went into hiding and the day they were betrayed - could have been the one that everything changed? It turns out that it was the day that Nazi Germany began bombing The Netherlands. Hoffman could have begun the book earlier, but begi...

The Day I Became A Potato Pancake by Arie Kaplan, illustrated by Beilin Xu Apples & Honey Press (imprint of Behrman House Publishers), 2024 Category: Middle Grade  Reviewer: Denise Ross Buy at Bookshop.org The Day I Became A Potato Pancake is a graphic novel combining science fiction with a Hanukkah theme, for students in grades 2-3. The story follows the adventures of two best friends, Naomi Hirsch and Ben Sherman. One day they are visiting Naomi’s family garage that is also her mom’s science lab. They are not supposed to touch or play with any of her experiments. Ben notices a new device that is called the “Transfogram”. The notes explain that the experimental machine will transform a person into whatever they are thinking about at the moment. Ben is eating a potato pancake and decides to push the button to see what the machine will do; Ben is transformed into a potato pancake! Ben attends school as a potato pancake and the reader will enjoy the reactions of their friends an...

Mendel the Mess-Up by Terry LaBan Holiday House, 2024 Category: Middle Grade  Reviewer: Rachel Aronowitz Buy at Bookshop.org Twelve year old Mendel is known in his shtetl as "Mendel the Mess-Up" because everything he does turns into a disaster, whether he is at school or helping his mother around the house. When Cossacks invade the town and loot and burn everything, Mendel must turn this weakness into his greatest strength and reverse the curse that was cast on him at birth to try and save his town. This graphic novel is drawn in an old fashioned, humorous, and colorful comics style and is fast paced with an enjoyable story. Readers will be rooting for Mendel and enjoy his transition from Mendel the Mess-Up to Mendel the Amazing! The setting of this graphic novel is a fantasy version of an Eastern European shetl or Jewish village, which is humorous and has some authentic aspects like the family having Shabbat dinner, going to synagogue, going to school to study Torah, and th...

Walking West by Tovah S. Yavin Menucha Publishers, 2024 Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Judy Ehrenstein Buy at MenuchaPublishers.com Life in 1880s Oklahoma Territory isn't easy, particularly if you are a Jewish peddler intent on keeping kosher and observing Shabbat. David Kamen and his Uncle Simon travel with their donkey Star throughout the territory, bringing needed items to farmers, ranchers, soldiers, and Indians, while encountering storms, stampedes, and even rattlesnakes along the way. An adventure story to enjoy, the details about the roughness of life and the challenges of battling ever changing weather, really draw the reader in. David is resourceful, levelheaded, and accepting of everyone he encounters, including the original Cherokee and Cheyenne residents of the land now being “settled.” And in return, these “egg eaters” as the Jewish peddlers are known, are equally accepted. David dreams of becoming a writer, and as he progresses in age from 12 to 17, he moves from ke...