The Sydney Taylor Shmooze

  We want to thank our dedicated team of volunteer book reviewers! They've been doing an incredible job evaluating Jewish children's and YA books for The Sydney Taylor Shmooze throughout 2022. Read their reviews so you'll be ready to VOTE for the Mock Sydney Taylor Book Awards, starting January 9, 2023! If you're interested in joining our reviewing team, CLICK HERE . Todah Rabah to: Laurie Adler Sarah Aronson Dena Bach Freidele Bianshvili Sarah Blattner Belinda Brock Jeanette Brod Merle Carrus Leah Cypess Meira Drazin Ronda Einbinder Karin Fisher-Golton Rachel Fremmer Beth Gallego Aleah Gornbein Jeff Gottesfeld Judy Greenblatt Suzanne Grossman Rinat Hadad Kathryn Hall Dina Herbert Bridget Hodder Ruth Horowitz Jacqueline Jules Mirele Kessous Rebecca Klempner Ann Koffsky Cynthia Levinson Ronna Mandel Linda Elovitz Marshall Evonne Marzouk Heather Matthews Naomi Morse Stacy Mozer Stacy Nockowitz Chava Pinchuck Heidi Rabinowitz Stacey Rattner Emily Roth Arlene Schenker ...

My Sister's Girlfriend by Gail Marlene Schwartz, co-written and illustrated by Lucie Gagnon Rebel Mountain Press, 2022 Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Kathryn Hall Buy at Bookshop.org Fifth grade student Talia Cohen-Sullivan lives with her father and sixteen year old sister Jade in contemporary eastern Canada. Talia likes math, art, and her best friend Carmen, but she does not care much for boys yet. Talia’s mom died from cancer three years ago and Talia is used to being the most important person to her sister. When Talia sees her sister kiss another girl she is first jealous and then anxious that Jade will be hurt when people find out that she is gay. Talia’s reluctance to communicate with her family and friends leads to misunderstandings and hurt feelings. As everyone is well-intentioned, and as they are willing to get therapy, learn more, and reach out to each other, it ends happily. This book captures the nuances of tween thoughts, feelings and actions in a realistic way and m...

My Left Skate: The Extraordinary Story of Eliezer Sherbatov by Anna Rosner Yellow Dog Press (imprint of Great Plains Publications), 2022 Category: Young Adult Reviewer: Eva Weiss Buy at Bookshop.org The life story of Eliezer Sherbatov, the courageous and tenacious hockey player is told in the first person, although it is written by educator and author Anna Rosner. Rosner conducted extensive interviews with the protagonist and the narrative is straightforward, authentic, and compelling. It is not an overstatement to brand Eliezer's story (he is now 31 years old) as "extraordinary." He overcame a freak accident that left him with a permanent disability, yet he pursued a career as a hockey player, encouraged by his mother, a professional skating coach, and supported by his family. He was born in Israel, the son of a family with Russian roots. On the first page, Eliezer shares, “My mother’s grandfather, a proud man, had been imprisoned for ten years for his 'Semitic ...

Nothing Sung and Nothing Spoken by Nita Tyndall HarperTeen (imprint of HarperCollins), 2022 Category: Young Adult Reviewer: Dena Bach Buy at Bookshop.org   In the summer before World War II begins, Charlotte “Charlie” Kraus, chafing under Hitler’s regulations, follows her best friend Angelika, “Geli,” the daughter of a Nazi officer, to a forbidden, hidden dance club. Despite their complicated feelings for each other, Charlie and Geli feel the thrill and freedom of dancing to the “degenerate” jazz music played there. As their lives in Berlin become more restricted, Charlie and Geli, along with friends Renate and Minna, find a kind of resistance to the Nazi regime by joining the “Swingjugend” movement. Historically, these groups of mostly middle- or upper-class teens, in opposition to Nazi policies, would dance in private homes or clubs to banned American music while dressed like the British and Americans. These clubs were a response to the “Hitlerjugend,” Hitler Youth groups, that t...

Ruth Bader Ginsburg Couldn't Drive? (Wait! What? series) by Dan Gutman, illustrated by Allison Steinfeld Norton Young Readers, 2022 Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Eva L. Weiss   Buy at Bookshop.org This engaging biography of the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is told by by fictional siblings Paige and Turner, names which foreshadows the sly and playful tone of the book. The dialogue between the brother and sister is intended to make the young storytellers relatable, and include high-minded quotations ("You can disagree without being disagreeable") to bring to life the sturdy values which characterized the life of RBG. There is a timeline for context. The light-hearted exchanges between the siblings reveal period detail and the inequities of an American era remote from the experiences of twenty-first century middle grade readers. (In 1956, there were only nine women in the Harvard Law School class of 552, and the absence of ladies' bathrooms meant a ...

Ethel's Song: Ethel Rosenberg's Life in Poems by Barbara Krasner Calkins Creek (imprint of Astra Books for Young Readers), 2022 Category: Young Adult Reviewer: Sarah Blattner Buy at Bookshop.org Ethel's Song is a collection of poems telling the story of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, the notorious Jewish couple who were electrocuted in 1953 after being charged and later convicted for conspiracy to commit espionage by leaking atom bomb secrets to the Soviets. Ethel Greenglass’ story begins as a young girl in tenement housing on the Lower East Side of New York City, where her mother parented harshly and her father toiled over his sewing machine repairs. As a girl, Ethel dreamed of being an actress, and as a youth, she fell in love with singing. Ethel quickly put aside her girlish dreams to help support her family, working as a typist and later as a stenographer. Ethel turned to the fight for workers’ rights and found a like minded companion in Julius Rosenberg. Ethel and Julius...

Einstein by Jim Ottaviani, illustrated by Jerel Dye First Second (imprint of Macmillan), 2022 Category: Young Adult Reviewer: Lisa Trank Buy at Bookshop.org Einstein , a new graphic novel by Jim Ottaviani, illustrated by Jerel Dye, (with coloring by Alison Acton), opens in Hollywood. Albert Einstein, along with his second wife, Elsa, is seen entering the premiere of “City Lights, A Comedy in Pantomime” alongside Charlie Chaplin. The crowd recognizes Einstein and breaks out in applause. Einstein says to Chaplin, “We are just walking. Why are they applauding?” Chaplin responds, “They cheer you because none of them understands you. They cheer me because they understand me. It doesn’t mean anything, but in time you get used to it.” Einstein begins with his celebrity, then quickly fades, like a film, to the full span of his life and career as one of the most important scientists and political figures of our time. As his wife tells Chaplin and the reader, all of his life, Einstein straddled ...