The Sydney Taylor Shmooze

This Dark Descent by Kalyn Josephson Roaring Brook Press (imprint of Macmillan Publishers), 2023 Category: Young Adult Reviewer: Cheryl Fox Strausberg Buy at Bookshop.org The best way to get what you want in the fantastical land of Enderlain is to win the Illinir - a magical horse race that is as dangerous as it is prestigious. Win this race and anything you want, you shall have - even a boon from the King, himself. With such rewards on the line, it’s hard to resist putting your life on the line to win. Enter the team of outcasts - Mikira (the rider), Arielle (the magician), and Damien (the mastermind) who know that they can win because they have huge things to lose and a lot riding on victory. For Mikira, winning the Illinir will not only bring her the fame and fortune to keep her family’s farm, but will give her the ability to free her father from forced indentured servitude. For Arielle, a Kinnish refugee, winning means having the ability to earn an honest living as a licensed encha...

Just a Hat by S. Khubiar Blackstone Publishing, 2023 Category: Young Adult Reviewer: Cheryl Fox Strausberg Buy at Bookshop.org As a thirteen year old kid growing up in the late 1970s in rural Texas, Joseph Nissan lives two lives. At school, he’s Joseph. He speaks English, he’s a math whiz, he just wants to fit in - not only to stop the persistent bullying from his white classmates but to be able to approach his first crush. At home, he’s Youssef. He speaks Farsi, he often translates for his Iranian immigrant mother who struggles with English, and he studies for his Bar Mitzvah. There’s a lot he doesn’t understand though, like why his parents are terrified of the police or why they never talk about their life in Iran. He follows their seemingly strict religious observance but wonders why he can’t play the piano on Shabbat, why he can only eat the food his mother cooks, and he wonders why, if community and religion is so important, they don’t live closer to the Iranian-Jewish community i...

The Summer of Lost Letters by Hannah Reynolds Razorbill (imprint of Penguin Random House) Category: Young Adult Reviewer: Cheryl Fox Strausberg Buy at Bookshop.org When Abigail Schoenberg receives a package of her grandmother Ruth’s personal effects, the last thing she expected to find was a bundle of love letters. However, the stranger part is that these letters were not signed by her grandfather, but instead by someone named Edward, of whom Abby’s family knows nothing. Abby and her family only know that her grandmother immigrated to the United States at the age of four in 1939. So, who is this mysterious Edward?    After reading through the letters and doing a bit of online research, Abby discovers that her grandmother was part of an American Kindertransport program. She was brought to the U.S. and essentially adopted by a wealthy Jewish family who summered on Nantucket Island. After discovering that Edward is still alive, Abby attempts and fails to arrange ...

 We Can't Keep Meeting Like This by Rachel Lynn Solomon Simon & Schuster Category: Young Adult Reviewer: Cheryl Fox Strausberg Buy at Bookshop.org In the summer before she goes off to college, Quinn Berkowitz can’t help but wonder how she is going to tell her family that the future that they’ve always banked on - the one where she joins the family’s wedding planning business, isn’t the future she envisions for herself. She is tired of playing her harp at the ceremonies; she’s fed up with handling crazy brides and grooms; she hates having to give up her last summer at home with her high school friends in order to work full time. When the summer couldn’t seem to be any bleaker, her longtime crush, Tarek - the son of the caterers that her family works with - returns home after his first year at college looking happy and healthy. Quinn and Tarek haven’t spoken since a fight in the previous summer which ended when Quinn poured out her feelings for him in an email to which he never r...

 The Poetry of Secrets by Cambria Gordon Scholastic Press Category: Young Adult Reviewer: Cheryl Fox Strausberg Buy at Bookshop.org Isabel Perez is a 16 year old in Trujillo, Spain in 1481. While she longs to be a poetess, she faces the reality that she is of marriageable age and her parents are antsy to get her married off. Especially since her family is hiding a dark secret: they are Jewish. This dual life they lead makes them cautious about the people they come into contact with and motivates them to arrange Isabel’s marriage with a secure Old Christian family. It becomes even more urgent once it is clear that the Inquisition is coming. One fateful day on her way home from a poetry reading, Isabel meets a good looking young man. Diego is equally as intrigued about Isabel, and the two begin meeting in secret and eventually fall in love. Diego, from impeccable Old Christian lineage, knows that his family will never consent for him to marry a New Christian girl, but continues to ho...

Some Other Now by Sarah Everett Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books for Young Readers Category: Young Adult Reviewer: Cheryl Fox Strausberg Buy at Bookshop.org Jessi Rumfield has never felt at home in her own family. Her mother has debilitating depression and her father spends most of his time tending to her and largely ignoring Jessi. It’s no wonder that when Rowan Cohen - Jessi’s best friend - pseudo-adopts her into his family, she feels closer to Rowan’s mother Mel and her two boys, instead of her own parents. After admitting her long-standing crush on Rowan’s older brother Luke, and having that crush reciprocated, Luke and Jessi start a whirlwind romance, no easy feat for a high school senior and a college freshman. However, her happiness is short-lived; On one fateful night, everything goes spectacularly wrong and results in fatal consequences. A year later, Jessi is trying to fill her time to avoid dealing with her problems but it only gets worse when Luke returns home from college a...