The Sydney Taylor Shmooze

A Boy from Baghdad by Miriam Halahmy Green Bean Books, 2024 Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Sarah Sassoon Buy from Bookshop.org A Boy from Baghdad is a heartwarming, authentic story about an Iraqi Jewish boy, Salman Shasha, who is suddenly uprooted with his family and the entire Iraqi Jewish community when they move from Baghdad to Israel. Not only does Salman’s family lose everything with the move to the refugee tent camps in Israel (home, language, identity), but Salman also loses his dream to be an Olympic gold swimmer for Iraq. The Iraqi Jewish world is little known and Halahmy paints a vibrant, colorful picture of the smells and sounds of the souq, the beautiful, wide Tigris River which is Salman’s swimming haunt, and the close-knit family and communal everyday life and traditions, such as the lighting of seven homemade wicks in sesame oil for Shabbat. She also captures the tensions for the Jews with the rising antisemitism and anti-Zionism which culminated in more than 120,000 ...

Rip to the Rescue by Miriam Halahmy Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Jane Kohuth   Buy at Bookshop.org Thirteen year-old Jack Castle has been bullied for years because he us deaf in his left ear. It is 1940 and London is reeling from the Blitz. Jack’s father, a disabled veteran of World War I has been moody and angry since the war began, often reprimanding Jack and telling him how useless he is. In order to prove his worth, Jack, who is tall, has lied about his age in order to join the Messengers, teenage boys who ride their bikes through air raids to deliver critical messages. He keeps this job from his parents, who believe Jack is guiding his grandfather to a shelter and staying with him during raids. During one air raid, Jack is injured, and help comes in the form of twelve-year-old Paula, who takes him home to her father, who is a doctor. Soon Jack also finds a stray dog with a ripped ear, whom he names “Rip.” Jack’s father, like many people at the time, had Jack’s pet cats eut...