The Sydney Taylor Shmooze

The Do More Club by Dana Kramaroff Rocky Pond Books (imprint of Penguin Random House), 2023 Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Meg Wiviott Buy at Bookshop.org Sixth-grader Josh doesn’t feel comfortable in his new school. In truth, he doesn’t feel comfortable in his own skin. He hides who he really is—probably the only Jewish kid in his middle school—especially once the school is vandalized with swastikas. Gradually, Josh realizes other students are subjected to other forms of prejudice, and when the one Black student experiences a similar racial attack, Josh is determined to become an ally and forms the Do More Club, based on tikkun olam. Though the club is a success, there are further acts of antisemitism, teaching Josh that change takes time. The Do More Club is fast paced. Written in verse, mostly using lower case with little punctuation, makes a difficult story more digestible. Josh is a likeable and sympathetic character. His problems are, sadly, real. Kramaroff creates poignant mo...

The Promise by Bridget Hodder and Fawzia Gilani-Williams, illustrated by Cinzia Battistel Kar-Ben Publishing (imprint of Lerner Publishing Group), 2023 Category: Picture Books Reviewer: Meg Wiviott Buy at Bookshop.org Jacob and Hassan live in a small village in Morocco. The boys go to different schools, practice different faiths, and are best friends. They play together in the cool, lush garden of Jacob’s family, designed to resemble gardens of ancestral Spain. Their families share meals, conversations, and drink mint tea together in the lovely garden. Hassan’s father says, “A garden is a prayer.” And Jacob’s father says, “A garden is also a promise.” The boys agree and tend the garden together. All is well until news arrives: “Frightening things, terrible hateful things, were being done to Jews in Europe.” Fearing the spread of danger, Jacob’s family must flee Morocco. Before Jacob departs, he asks Hassan to tend the garden. Hassan promises he will. Years later, a grey-haired Jacob re...

The Counselors by Jessica Goodman Razorbill (imprint of Penguin Random House), 2022 Category: Young Adult Reviewer: Meg Wiviott Buy at Bookshop.org Goldie Eastman can’t wait to return to Camp Alpine Lake, the only place she feels safe, loved, and at home. Her senior year was disastrous, filled with love and lies, and secrets she’s kept from her best friends Ava and Imogen. But will this year’s summer be the same as those in the past, as Goldie, Ava, and Imo work as counselors, or will the secrets she’s kept ruin their friendships forever? Jessica Goodman’s young adult novel, The Counselors , brings to life the joys, comradery, and appeal of summer camp. Until, that is, a local boy is found dead on the grounds of Camp Alpine. Goldie knows this is no accident and knows she must find the truth behind the murder. What she uncovers is that the truth can be ugly—and that she’s not the only one keeping secrets. The Counselors is a quintessential story about summer camp (or as I imagine summe...

Bluebird by Sharon Cameron Scholastic Press Category: Young Adult Reviewer: Meg Wiviott Buy at Bookshop.org Sharon Cameron’s BLUEBIRD begins in August 1946 with Eva arriving in New York City from war-torn Berlin. Chapter Two begins in February 1945, where sixteen-year-old Inge steals her father’s car to go on a joy ride and giggles with her friend Annemarie about kissing her mother’s chauffeur, even though she’s all but engaged to Rolf, a friend of Papa’s. In America, Eva is on a mission—not the one the US government assigned to her—to mete out justice for the innocent. In Germany, Inge’s world falls apart with the Führer’s death and her discovery of the truth of her father’s work in his camp. These seemingly separate stories are soon braided together into one cohesive storyline.  An idea for a story often begin with the question, “What if?” What if a German girl, an active member in the League of German Girls, though she never seems to measure up to pure Nazi standards, discovers ...

Last Witnesses (Adapted for Young Adults) by Svetlana Alexievich, Translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky Delacorte Press (imprint of Penguin Random House) Category: Young Adults Reviewer: Meg Wiviott Buy at Bookshop.org In August 1939, Nazi Germany and the USSR signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, an unofficial agreement in which the two countries agreed to stipulations of non-aggression against one another and to partition and divide Poland. Despite this agreement, German invaded the Soviet Union in June of 1941. Last Witnesses (Adapted for Young Adults) presents an oral history of the children of the Great Patriotic War (what we in the West know as either Operation Barbarossa or the Eastern Front of WWII). Originally published for adults in Russian in 1985 as Last Witnesses: An Oral History of the Children of World War II , Penguin Random House has now made both adult and a young adult adaptation available in English.   Nobel Prize winning author Alexievich...

 When the World Was Ours  by Liz Kessler Aladdin (imprint of Simon & Schuster) Category: Young Adult Reviewer: Meg Wiviott Buy at Bookshop.org When the World Was Ours follows the lives of Leo, Elsa, and Max from 1936 to 1945. Opening on Leo’s ninth birthday, the three best friends ride Vienna’s giant ferris wheel. When Leo accidentally collides with an English couple, a friendship blooms. The joy of that day does not last long, however. Despite the rising tide of Nazism, Leo’s family remains in Vienna. His father is arrested and sent to Dachau and then to Auschwitz. Leo and his mother scramble to get visas out of Austria, but to no avail. Finally, the couple Leo bumped into on the ferris wheel three years ago agree to sponsor them. Elsa, who is also Jewish, and her family escape to Czechoslovakia, but are eventually sent to Theresienstadt and then to Auschwitz. Max’s father, an ardent Nazi, moves to Munich to work at Dachau. To please his father, Max joins the Hitler You...

 The Donkey and the Garden by Devorah Busheri, illustrated by Menahem Halberstadt Green Bean Books Category: Picture Books Reviewer: Meg Wiviott Buy at Bookshop.org This picture book biography of Rabbi Akiva is not a whole-life portrait; it does not follow Akiva from childhood to adolescence and adulthood until he becomes one of Judaism’s greatest scholars, sages, and tannaim. Slightly more tightly focused than Jacqueline Jules' Drop by Drop , it begins in his adulthood, when he is a forty year old, illiterate shepherd. Akiva’s wife, Rachel, is truly the heroine of this story, for she is the one who encourages Akiva to learn to read and write. Akiva wants to, he yearns to, but worries he will never fit in with the children and that people will laugh at him. Instead of pushing him, Rachel plants a garden on a donkey’s back and insists Akiva come to the market with her. The first day, people point at the donkey and laugh. The second day, people still point and laugh. But on the third...

Try It! How Frieda Caplan Changed the Way We Eat  by Mara Rockliff, illustrated by Giselle Potter Beach Lane Books (imprint of Simon & Schuster) Category: Picture Books Reviewer: Meg Wiviott Buy at Bookshop.org Moving quickly from bookkeeper at LA’s Seventh Street produce market in the mid-1950s to sales (the only woman among a workforce of men) Frieda Caplan “loved people” and “She loved to talk.” Frieda also loved to try new things, especially fruits and vegetables other than apples, bananas, and potatoes. Frieda’s instincts and “a funny feeling in her elbows” told her when she’d found something other people would grow to love too. With packaging and recipes she encouraged people to try new things, like mushrooms, while the other salesmen all said, “No!” It was not long before Frieda owned her own produce company and sold unusual fruits and vegetables: black radishes, baby corn, kiwi fruit, jicama, and quince. If you see produce in the grocery you’ve never seen before, chance...

Nicky & Vera: A Quiet Hero of the Holocaust and the Children He Rescued  by Peter Sís Norton Young Readers (imprint of WW Norton and Company) Category: Picture Books Reviewer: Meg Wiviott Buy at Bookshop.org In December 1938, Nicholas Winton, an English stockbroker, visited a friend in Prague to help hundreds of thousands of refugees, mostly Jewish, who escaped the Nazi invasion of Sudetenland. Knowing that war was coming, time was running out, and something needed to be done, Nicky got started. England would give unaccompanied minors temporary admission, so working out of his hotel room, Nicky worked with desperate parents to arrange safe passage for their children. Returning to England, Nicky continued to work: finding foster families, applying for visas, and making travel arrangements. “Eight trains left Prague in the spring and summer of 1939.” A ninth train carrying 250 more children was stopped at the border on September 1, the day Germany attacked Poland. Nicky lived a g...

Fish Out of Water by Joanne Levy Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Meg Wiviott Buy at Bookshop.org Fishel “Fish” Rosen is not a typical twelve-year-old boy. He does not like “typical” boy activities like sports—playing or even watching with his zaida. He doesn’t want to take the water polo class his mom and stepfather sign him up for and really doesn’t want to help his best friend collect used hockey equipment for his mitzvah project. Instead, Fish comes up with his own plan for his mitzvah project. But for his project, Fish must learn how to knit and his bubby won’t teach him, saying “knitting isn’t for boys.” After he joins the school’s Knitting Club, Fish’s friends shut him out and his best friend calls him “weird” and “girly.” After he sneaks into the Seniors' Zumba class at the JCC rather than going to water polo, his stepfather yells at him and then informs him, “Boys don’t cry.” With support from his rabbi and knitting teacher, Fish learns to stand up for himself. Fish’s refu...

  Review: A Ceiling Made of Eggshells by Gail Carson Levine Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Meg Wiviott   Buy at Bookshop.org    Loma loves taking care of her young nieces and nephews – her “littles”. More than anything else, she wants to be a Mamá with a husband and children of her own. But Loma’s grandfather, Belo, an influential advisor to Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand, wants her to accompany him as he travels throughout Spain helping Jews and conducting royal business. At first, Loma is thrilled; she is seven years old when Belo notices her aptitude with numbers and singles her out from all her siblings. But the years pass and Belo refuses to look for a husband for her. Loma resigns herself to having the “littles” as her only children. After the King and Queen inform Belo and his friend Don Solomon Bohor, another Royal advisor, of their plans to banish all the Jews from Spain, Belo is incapacitated by an illness. Fearing the royal couple may kidnap him and f...

The Boy Who Thought Outside The Box: The story of Video Game Inventor Ralph Baer by Marcie Wessels , illustrated by Beatriz Castro Category: Picture Books Reviewer: Meg Wiviott A picture book biography that traces the life of Ralph Baer from his childhood in Cologne, Germany to his adult life in New York where he becomes the “Father of Video Games.” But such a journey is never easy. Once he is forbidden from attending school because he is Jewish, Ralph is determined to learn English, which helps his family escape Nazi Germany in 1938. His childhood fascination with gears and construction, and the emergence of radio and television sets him on a path towards electrotonic engineering. Long before anyone thinks of using a television for playing a game, Ralph and a team of engineers build the first TV game system. Unfortunately, no company wants to support it. Ralph never gives up. Magnavox’s Odyssey is the first game system sold in 1972, “forever chang[ing] the way we play.” The ...

No Steps Behind: Beate Sirota Gordon's Battle for Women's Rights in Japan by Jeff Gottesfeld, illustrated by Shiella Witanto  Category: Picture Books Reviewer:  Meg Wiviott How does a 22-year-old Jewish woman come to write articles for the Japanese post-war constitution in 1946 that guarantee rights for women? No Steps Behind tells the amazing story of Beate Sirota Gordon. Born in Austria, reared in Japan, and educated in the United States, Beate ended up as the only “the only woman in [the] room.” Her gift for languages and her love of her adopted country, along with perseverance, persuasiveness, and stubbornness gave her the opportunity to change the lives of women in Japan. And why is it you’ve never heard this story before? Perhaps because the US government deemed Beate’s role “a security secret”. It was not until the 1990s that Beate was able to discuss her role. The history contained this beautiful picture book is complex and vast. Jeff Gottesfeld touches on ...

  We Had to be Brave: Escaping the Nazis on the Kindertransport by Deborah Hopkinson Category:Middle Grade Reviewer: Meg Wiviott The night of November 9, 1938 made clear the precariousness of life for Jews in Nazi Germany and Austria. World leaders were outraged by the events of Kristallnacht; there were protests and condemnations, but only one country took action. Refugee advocates and Jewish leaders in England convinced the British government to accept more immigrants—specifically children. Over the next nine months, the Kindertransport rescued roughly 10,000 children under the age of seventeen from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. Desperate parents put their children on trains and sent them first to Holland and then to England to be fostered by strangers speaking a foreign language in an unfamiliar land, without knowing if they would ever see them again. This is no bland recitation of facts. Using the voices of twenty-one Kindertransport survivors and five...