The Sydney Taylor Shmooze

Latke's First Hanukkah written and illustrated by Alan Silberberg Viking Books for Young Readers (imprint of Penguin Random House), 2023 Category: Picture Books Reviewer: Elizabeth Suneby Buy at Bookshop.org While Latke’s First Hanukkah is Alan Silberberg’s first board book, it is not his first book for young children that combines food with fun. Through animated latkes and other holiday food characters and objects—including jelly donuts, chocolate gelt, spinning dreidels, and wrapped gifts, he includes highlights of the holiday: lighting the menorah for eight nights, welcoming friends, celebrating light, and even the applesauce versus sour cream latke topping debate. Simple counting, bright colors, and cheerful illustrations make for an inviting introduction to the Festival of Lights for little ones. Are you interested in reviewing books for The Sydney Taylor Shmooze?  Click here! Reviewer Elizabeth Suneby is an award-winning children's book author whose Jewish-themed titles...

Meet the Hamantaschen: A Purim Mystery written and illustrated by Alan Silberberg Viking (imprint of Penguin Random House), 2022 Category: Picture Books Reviewer: Freidele Galya Soban Biniashvili Buy at Bookshop.org Three hamantaschen detectives – chocolate, poppy seed and jelly-filled, of course – receive a mysterious call to find a megillah that has gone missing from a Purim party, leading them to work on The Case of the Purim Problem. Such is the premise of Alan Silberberg’s latest title Meet the Hamantaschen: A Purim Mystery . In disguise as a cake, a cookbook, and a cactus, the three detectives arrive at the party and question the prime suspects in the play: Beth the lox (Vashti), Melvin the matzah ball (King Ahasuerus). Sam the blintz (Mordecai), Barry the kreplach (Haman) and Zelda the rugelach (Queen Esther). Eventually, the mystery of the missing megillah is solved after the play is performed, followed by a Purim party complete with singing and dancing. A glossary of terms, co...

 Change Sings: A Children's Anthem by Amanda Gorman, illustrated by Loren Long Viking Books for Young Readers (imprint of Penguin Random House) Category: Picture Books Reviewer: Heidi Rabinowitz   Buy at Bookshop.org Amanda Gorman, National Youth Poet Laureate, is the young activist poet who won accolades for her inspiring reading of "The Hill We Climb" at the presidential inauguration in 2021. Her first picture book is Change Sings: A Children's Anthem , and it carries the same strong message of empowerment.  The nameless young narrator tells us "There is hope where my change sings" and evokes the many ways we can all work together to make the world a better place. While the lyrical text may be a bit obscure for younger readers, the realistic illustrations by Loren Long make it clear that the lovely black girl with her oversize guitar is encouraging everyone to join her in acts of tikkun olam. She hands out instruments to diverse kids to form a band, feeds ...

Summer of Stolen Secrets by Julie Sternberg Viking (imprint of Penguin Random House) Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Rachel J. Fremmer Buy at Bookshop.org From its opening pages with protagonist Catarina’s distinct voice to its poignant ending, Summer of Stolen Secrets is a unique and age-appropriate take on how the trauma of the Holocaust and survivors’ guilt can reverberate for generations. When New Yorker Catarina visits her cousin Lexie in Louisiana, she meets her paternal grandmother for the first time. Catarina knows only that Safta disowned her son, Catarina’s father, when he married her mom, a non-Jew. As she probes into Safta’s past, she finds out that there is much more than spitefulness or provincialism behind this family rift. Based on - and dedicated to - the author’s own grandmother, and based on her family’s Baton Rouge department store, Summer of Stolen Secrets brings the Jewish South to life. Sternberg addresses sensitive and weighty issues, but at the s...

Meet the Matzah: A Sort-of Passover Story written and illustrated by Alan Silberberg Viking (imprint of Penguin Random House) Category: Picture Books Reviewer: Freidele Galya Soban Biniashvili Buy at Bookshop.org In author / illustrator Alan Silberberg’s Meet the Matzah , Alfie Koman is a matzah who likes to hide. His classmates include Challah Louyah, Na’ancy, Bun and Bun and others. His teacher, Mrs. Crust, has called on him to tell the Passover story and although Alfie attempts to tell the story, Loaf, another classmate, overruns him. Loaf tells his version of the Passover story, that includes the evil Pha-Roach and the Ten Plagues, some of which are No Wi-Fi, Early Bedtime, Broccoli for Dessert and Indoor Recess Forever. Along the lines of a sub-plot of bullying, Alfie manages to regain control of the situation away from Loaf and turns him into a friend, in a most satisfying way. Written in a combination of both text and cartoon bubbles, Meet the Matzah miraculously manages to conv...

The Blackbird Girls by Anne Blankman Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Beth Gallego On an April morning in 1986, Valentina Kaplan and Oksana Savchenko wake up in Pripyat, Ukraine, to a red sky full of blue smoke. Neither of their fathers have come home from the overnight shift at the nearby V. I. Lenin Nuclear Power Plant, better known as Chernobyl. Within a few days, the twelve-year-old girls are evacuated to Leningrad. Oksana is angry and afraid, not least because her father has always told her that Jews are liars and thieves, and Valentina’s family is Jewish. Valentina is resentful that her mother is sending her away to a grandmother she has never met, with a girl who has bullied her for years as company. On an August morning in 1941, Rifka Friedman flees her Kiev home with only an older cousin and the few things they can carry, racing to escape the invading German forces. Her mother and three little brothers remain behind, and she can only hope that she will see them agai...