The Sydney Taylor Shmooze

Dino-Hanukkah by Lisa Wheeler, illustrated by Barry Gott Carolrhoda Publishing (imprint of Lerner Publishing Group), 2023 Category: Picture Books Reviewer: Laurie Adler Buy at Bookshop.org Come celebrate with the dinosaurs, as they cheerfully prepare for the holiday and join in familiar Hanukkah fun. This book is the latest addition and the first Jewish holiday featured in the Dino-Holiday series by author/ illustrator team Lisa Wheeler and Barry Gott. In Dino-Hanukkah , the dinosaurs decorate, play dreidel, open presents, and engage in other highly recognizable Hanukkah activities. Wheeler’s rhymes are never forced, and there is a small plot of Allo the Allosaurus waiting patiently for all eight nights till it’s his turn to light the menorah. Gott’s bold and colorful computer-generated illustrations are toddler-friendly and add to the fun; even the T-Rex is affable and unthreatening. Each page conveys action and activity and is full of enough detail for children to find new elements i

Stars of the Night: The Courageous Children of the Czech Kindertransport  by Caren Stelson, illustrated by Selina Alko Carolrhoda (imprint of Lerner Publishing Group), 2023 Category: Picture Books Reviewer: Heather J. Matthews Buy at Bookshop.org Opening with the Talmud quote “save one life, save the world,” Stars of the Night tells the nonfiction story of a group of children. With narration in the third person plural, the reader is transported to Prague, Czechoslovakia, in 1939. With a group of Jewish children ages from 7 to 10, we are shown scenes of sunny afternoon picnicking with mothers and hot chocolate-filled café nights with fathers. However, by November 1938, “something happened,” and the city of Prague is surrounded by tent camps filled with war refugees. Soon, the children begin to experience threats from local children, and the parents of Prague beginning making “arrangements” with a mysterious and unnamed man. These nebulous arrangements, we find out later, come to fruitio

 Eddie Whatever by Lois Ruby Carolrhoda Books (imprint of Lerner Publishing Group) Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Shirley Reva Vernick Buy at Bookshop.org For his bar mitzvah project, 13-year-old Eddie Lewin volunteers at the Silver Brook retirement home, where the residents call him “Eddie Whatever” rather than bothering to remember his last name. Eddie expects his “sentence” to be a bore, but at least his friend/crush Tessa is volunteering there too. Soon, the resident seniors topple Eddie’s assumptions about the dullness of elderly people. Their lives are filled with secrets, courtships, the rumor of a vengeful ghost, and drama over repeated robberies. When Eddie gets blamed for the thefts, he and Tessa work together to solve the riddles at Silver Brook.   Filled with humor, poignancy and mystery, Eddie Whatever explores the realities of aging in a fast-paced story that will draw in middle-grade readers. And there’s more. When Eddie learns that one of the residents is

 Aftermath by Emily Barth Isler Carolrhoda (imprint of Lerner Publishing Group) Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Heidi Rabinowitz   Aftermath joins other modern explorations of grief for young people such as Sorry for Your Loss by Joanne Levy, All Three Stooges by Erica Perl, and Dancing at the Pity Party by Tyler Feder. This book, uniquely, contemplates not only personal loss but communal loss.  Middle schooler Lucy's little brother Theo has recently died from a heart defect, and the family's attempt at a fresh start in a new town means that Lucy loses her school and her friends along with her home. Even worse, the fictional DC-area town to which they move is deeply scarred by a school shooting that happened four years ago. Lucy feels that her own grief can't compete with that of her new schoolmates, but finally starts to heal through an after school mime class which encourages her to express her feelings, through befriending the unfairly ostracized sister of the dea