The Sydney Taylor Shmooze

Max and the Not-So-Perfect Apology by Carl Harris Shuman, illustrated by Rory Walker and Michael Garton Apples & Honey Press (imprint of Behrman House), 2024 Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Judy Greenblatt Max has a time machine – one that works! Author Carl Harris Shulman use this device, in this third title in the Torah Time Travel Series, to draw his audience in. Max takes off in it to seek solace after a fight with his best friend. He’s especially sad and angry because she has made a new friend, and won’t come with him. This trip lands him in the middle of the biblical Jacob story, which just happens to be the story his class is working on. It was this class project that started his disagreement with his special friend. The argument led each of them to say things they didn’t mean, but neither could find a way to apologize. Enter Jacob, here called Jake, a man who is estranged from his brother, but who wants to mend the relationship. As Max talks to Jacob about his struggle to ...

Max and Emma Cross the Red Sea (Torah Time Travel #2)  by Carl Harris Shuman, illustrated by C.B. Decker Apples & Honey (imprint of Behrman House), 2022 Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Sandy Wasserman Buy at Bookshop.org A masterpiece! In just seven perfect short chapters we suspend disbelief and join Max and his reprogrammed old smartphone, enter Max's cardboard time machine, and head back in time. We meet Moses, Nachshon and a few more of the cast of characters in the desert as the Israelites escape Pharoah's advancing army. Max doesn't take this trip alone though; his new friend Emma joins him and builds his confidence so that he can recite the four questions without too much palm-sweating or stage fright. Emma's been looking for a seder for her family to attend anyway, so that invitation comes around perfectly. And this early chapter book, with its delightful illustrations, does not lack for humor: laugh out loud humor, that will not be above the reader's h...