The Sydney Taylor Shmooze

Straw Bag, Tin Box, Cloth Suitcase: Three Immigrant Voices by Jane Yolen, Marjorie Lotfi and Raquel Elizabeth Artiga de Paz, illustrated by Fotini Tikkou Reycraft Books, 2023 Category: Picture Books Reviewer: Jeanette Brod Buy at Bookshop.org As a nation of immigrants, our family histories have roots in other countries. The countries we leave are often fraught with peril for those who live there. At great personal risk, some people choose to emigrate and eventually arrive in America. Straw Bag, Tin Box, Cloth Suitcase: Three Immigrant Voices is the story of three generations that undertake the immigrant journey from different continents. The stories are fictionalized accounts of the families of the storytellers. Each story is told by a woman who passes generational memory to a young girl who is the appointed keeper of the family legacy. An artifact from each place (a straw bag, a tin box, a cloth suitcase) sparks the storytelling and creates some of the parallelism that connects the s

Professor Buber and His Cats by Susan Tarcov, illustrated by Fotini Tikkou Kar-Ben Publishing (imprint of Lerner Publishing Group), 2022 Category: Picture Books Reviewer: Arlene Schenker Buy at Bookshop.org A whimsical fictional story based on the real life of philosopher Martin Buber, this picture book will delight all readers, from the children hearing it to the adults reading it. The illustrations of the cats are so expressive that it seems perfectly reasonable when seven street cats start talking to Ketem, the cat protagonist of the story. Ketem is looking for a new home with lots of books. Her home in a book store was perfect, but the store is closing. Professor Buber’s house on Hovevei Zion street with its thousands of books would be ideal, but the street cats tell Ketem that the professor doesn’t want any cats in his house. He loves animals, but he cannot be distracted by their conversation when a person comes to him for advice; he needs to concentrate on that person’s problem.