The Sydney Taylor Shmooze

Tree. Table. Book. by Lois Lowry Clarion Books (imprint of HarperCollins), 2024 Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Heather J. Matthews Buy at Bookshop.org Tree. Table. Book. examines the friendship between two neighbors – Sophia Henry Winslow, 11 years old, and Sophie Gershowitz, 88 years old. Sophia, after learning that Sophie’s son suspects his mother is in the early stages of dementia, takes it upon herself to prove her friend is mentally fit, and therefore, will not need to move out of her home. Armed with a friend’s father’s copy of the Merck manual, Sophia “tests” her friend’s ability to complete tasks; for example, Sophie’s abstract reasoning is tested when she is asked to determine what the words cat, dog, hamster and gerbil have in common. After passing some “tests” and failing others, Sophia revisits one test over and over – a short-term memory test, in which Sophie is told three words and then is asked to recall the words after three minutes have passed. Trying to stack the d...

Run and Hide: How Jewish Youth Escaped the Holocaust written and illustrated by Don Brown Clarion Books (imprint of HarperCollins), 2023 Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Judy Ehrenstein Buy at Bookshop.org Employing his signature angular, thin-line style and a subdued palette of grays and browns with effective pops of red, orange, and yellow, Don Brown presents the rise of the Nazis and the devastation they brought to the world, succinctly and powerfully. Beginning with the end of WWI and the economic woes of post-war Germany, he traces Hitler’s rise to power with a rhetoric of blame that is eagerly accepted by Germans. Moving through restrictions on Jewish life and employment, Kristallnacht, and roundups of adults, Brown keeps his focus on the lives of children: those sent on Kindertransports; those who were hidden; and those who survived by their own wits. While concentration camps are mentioned, this is not a book about those children sent to the camps. The work of resistance groups...

A Perfect Fit: How Lena "Lane" Bryant Changed the Shape of Fashion by Mara Rockliff, illustrated by Juana Martinez-Neal Clarion Books (imprint of HarperCollins), 2022 Category: Picture Books Reviewer: Shirley Reva Vernick Buy at Bookshop.org This lyrical picture book biography shows how Lena "Lane" Bryant founded the eponymous fashion brand that celebrates bodies of all shapes and sizes. A brilliant seamstress at the turn of the 20th century, Lena was struggling to make ends meet…until customers started requesting designs that wouldn't "squeeze or pinch" women with nonstandard shapes. Lena remembered something her grandfather had once told her: real success lies in helping others. So she got to work creating comfortable and stylish clothing in all sizes and styles, including maternity wear with "room to grow." That was when her business, inspired by the goal of providing accessible fashion, took off. In providing customers with the perfect fi...

Wayward Creatures by Dayna Lorentz Clarion Books (imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), 2022 Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Shirley Reva Vernick Buy at Bookshop.org Twelve-year-old Gabe feels unmoored by the stress of his father’s unemployment and the shifting friendships of junior high. He acts out by setting off fireworks in the park, accidentally causing a forest fire that destroys acres of public land. When Gabe enters a restorative justice program, he gets the chance to repair some of the damage he has caused. It’s through this program that he gets to know and help Rill, a young coyote who was seriously injured in the fire. Told in the alternating first-person voices of Gabe and Rill, this story agilely explores relationship dynamics, community, self-empowerment, and ecology. Lorentz imbues her faced-paced story with relatable characters who possess both humor and heart. Hard truths about consequences and responsibility are balanced by uplifting messages of personal transformat...

Sarah Bernhardt: The Divine and Dazzling Life of the World's First Superstar by Catherine Reef Category: Young Adult Reviewer: Beth Gallego Actress, artist, author, mother, world traveller, French patriot: the “Divine Sarah” played many roles, both on and off the stage. Her life was filled with dramatic episodes, which Reef presents in rich detail while also acknowledging that both the loss of historical records and Bernhardt’s tendency to embellish her own stories make some of those details difficult to verify. For example, “Sarah Bernhardt said that she was born on October 22, 1844, and maybe she was. A fire destroyed her birth certificate, so she can only be taken at her word.” The nineteenth-century world in which Bernhardt rose to fame contains many aspects that may be unfamiliar to twenty-first-century teens. From the demimonde and courtesans to the Franco-Prussian War, Reef’s narrative provides historical context for Bernhardt’s experiences. Photographs and illustr...