The Sydney Taylor Shmooze

 One Small Hop by Madelyn Rosenberg Scholastic Press Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Stacy Nockowitz Buy at Bookshop.org One Small Hop is a surprising departure for author Madelyn Rosenberg from her other middle grade novels, This is Just a Test and Not Your All-American Girl (both co-written with Wendy Wan-Long Shang). Those books are both set in the 1980s and tell stories of young teens dealing with typical issues involving school, friendship, and family. In contrast, One Small Hop is a tale of a not-so-distant future devastated by climate change. In the small shore town of Town Harbor, Maine, Jonathan “Ahab” Goldstein and his friends come upon something rare and wondrous- a real, live bullfrog. They should turn the frog over to the Environmental Police Force. But the EPF is completely inept, and Ahab worries that the frog will die in the agency’s care. No, this might be the last bullfrog in the country, and Ahab and his friends decide they must find it a mate on ...

Not Your All-American Girl by Madelyn Rosenberg and Wendy Wan-Long Shang Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Stacy Nockowitz In 2017, Madelyn Rosenberg and Wendy Wan-Long Shang came out with This is Just a Test , the story of David Da Wei Horowitz, a 12-year-old, half-Jewish, half-Chinese boy, set in the 1980s. Now, in 2020, the authors have written Not Your All-American Girl , the story of David’s younger sister, Lauren. In Not Your All-American Girl , Lauren faces friendship hiccups and the thinly veiled prejudice of her school drama teacher. Lauren sings beautifully and kills her audition for the school musical, but her best friend Tara is cast as the lead. The drama teacher tells Lauren that she just doesn’t look like the all-American girl that Tara embodies. Lauren’s musical talent, along with her dark hair and culturally mixed features, land her in the ensemble. Lauren is disappointed and confused, but she ends up making friends with other ensemble members, even as her friendship wi...