The Sydney Taylor Shmooze

Ruth Bader Ginsburg Couldn't Drive? (Wait! What? series) by Dan Gutman, illustrated by Allison Steinfeld Norton Young Readers, 2022 Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Eva L. Weiss   Buy at Bookshop.org This engaging biography of the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is told by by fictional siblings Paige and Turner, names which foreshadows the sly and playful tone of the book. The dialogue between the brother and sister is intended to make the young storytellers relatable, and include high-minded quotations ("You can disagree without being disagreeable") to bring to life the sturdy values which characterized the life of RBG. There is a timeline for context. The light-hearted exchanges between the siblings reveal period detail and the inequities of an American era remote from the experiences of twenty-first century middle grade readers. (In 1956, there were only nine women in the Harvard Law School class of 552, and the absence of ladies' bathrooms meant a

 Houdini and Me by Dan Gutman Holiday House Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Meira Drazin Buy at Bookshop.org In Dan Gutman’s middle grade novel HOUDINI AND ME, Harry Mancini is just a regular eleven-year-old kid living in New York City. His one claim to fame is that he lives in the same apartment another Harry used to live in: Harry Houdini, famous escape artist. Things begin to get weird though when someone claiming to be Harry Houdini—who died in 1926— starts texting Harry Manicini from an old cell phone. Of course, it must be a prank. But whoever is texting this Harry knows a lot of things only Harry Houdini himself could know—like how to do some of his most famous tricks. So when Harry Houdini gives Harry Mancini a chance to change places and escape his twenty-first century life for an hour, what could go wrong? Only the fact that Harry Mancini soon finds himself in 1921 Kansas City, in a straight jacket, being cranked nine stories into the air by his feet, forced to perform Harry