The Sydney Taylor Shmooze

Hidden Truths by Elly Swartz Delacorte Press, 2023 Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Lisa Trank Buy at Bookshop.org About-to-be-sixth-graders Dani and Eric are lifelong best friends and next door neighbors. Dani looks out for Eric, who struggles with ADD and being bullied; Eric supports Dani’s dream of pitching for the all-boy baseball team. When Dani finally achieves her goal, Eric is the first one there for her with their favorite treat, donuts: glazed for him and Boston cream for Dani. On their annual summer camping trip, Eric insists on making their traditional mac and cheese, despite Dani telling him she just wants to head to bed. The next morning, when Eric is outside relieving himself, (because Dani has fallen asleep in front of the bathroom door), the almost-new camper bursts into flames. Eric risks his life and runs back inside and pulls Dani out. Dani survives, but a broken tibia and nerve damage to her pitching arm means that she won’t be on the baseball mound this season, an...

Hollowthorn (A Ravenfall Novel) by Kalyn Josephson Delacorte Press (imprint of Random House Children's Books), 2023 Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Kathryn Hall Buy at Bookshop.org Hollowthorn 's cover is exquisite and made me eager to read this sequel to the author's novel Ravenfall , which I have not read. I very much appreciated the excellent summary of Ravenfall provided before chapter one. Hollowthorn is told from three viewpoints: 13 year old Anna, 14 year old Colin, and Ravenfall, the magical inn that Anna and her family run as a bed & breakfast in Wick, Oregon. All of the major characters, and most of the minor ones have some sort of supernatural abilities. Anna and Colin used their magic after the murder of Colin's parents to rescue Colin's brother Liam in the previous book. Now, a little more than a month later, in Hollowthorn Anna and Colin join Henry (Anna's father) and Salem (a Raven, but human) on a quest to prevent Ashmedai, the Jewish Lord o...

Ravenfall by Kalyn Josephson Delacorte Press (imprint of Penguin Random House), 2022 Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Rebecca Klempner Buy at Bookshop.org Annabella Ballinkay is a 13-year-old girl with the ability to -- with a single touch -- see deaths which have been witnessed by others. Each member of her family has their own magical ability. She lives at her family's inn, Ravenfall, which sits at a spot in Oregon where the Shield guarding the "normal" world from the Otherworld is thin enough for magic and magical beings to spill over. Shortly before Samhain, 14-year-old Colin Pierce shows up at Ravenfall. He's been on the run from the murderers of his parents for weeks. Since he's been separated from his older brother, Liam, Colin follows the directions he'd received for such an eventuality: go to Ravenfall and wait for Liam to arrive. Newly introduced to the world of magic, Colin soon learns that he's a Raven, a guardian of the Shield. Anna and her fa...

RBG's Brave and Brilliant Women by Nadine Epstein, illustrated by Bee Johnson Delacorte Press (Penguin Random House) Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Stacy Nockowitz Buy at Bookshop.org Nadine Epstein’s RBG’s Brave and Brilliant Women takes full advantage of its association with the iconic Supreme Court justice named in its title. Ruth Bader Ginsburg not only wrote the introduction for this book– in the year of her death, no less– but she also played a large role in selecting the women whose biographies Epstein highlights. Justice Ginsburg’s introduction is short but excellent. She discusses two of her personal heroines, Emma Lazarus and Henrietta Szold, and she inspires readers to seek out role models of their own. The Jewish women profiled in RBG’s Brave and Brilliant Women run the gamut from familiar (Anne Frank, Judy Resnik) to more obscure (Glükel of Hameln). Young readers, though, may only recognize the names of a few of the thirty-three women. The short biograph...