The Sydney Taylor Shmooze

Chunky Goes to Camp by Yehudi Mercado Katherine Tegan Books (imprint of HarperCollins), 2022 Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Rebecca Klempner Buy at Bookshop.org In Chunky Goes to Camp , a semi-autobiographical graphic novel, we follow Hudi, the protagonist of 2021’s Chunky . Hudi is a junior high student with a flair for comedy. Unfortunately, Vice Principal Hyatt doesn't share Hudi's sense of humor. Hyatt decides that since Hudi is Mexican and doesn't "follow the rules," Hudi must be a hoodlum. He accuses Hudi of one “offense” after another and sends Hudi to detention over and over. While we laugh at the absurdity, we also feel outrage against the punitive school discipline depicted. When the school year ends, Hudi’s parents send him to Camp Green, a Jewish sleepaway camp, to prevent more trouble (although they agree that the administration treated him unfairly). Before Hudi even reaches camp, things get Jewy. There are four friends all named Josh. Camp events ...

A Visit to Moscow Adapted by Anna Olswanger from a story by Rabbi Rafael Grossman, illustrated by Yevgenia Nayberg West Margin Press, 2022 Category: Young Adult Reviewer: Jeanette Brod Buy at Bookshop.org In the summer of 1965, a group of American rabbis visit the Soviet Union to meet with Soviet Jews. Rabbi Rafael Grossman, a member of the delegation, goes in search of the brother of one of his congregants. He finds a hidden child. Zev is a beautiful and fragile four-year-old boy who peeks out from behind a curtain. He has never been outside. He has never met a stranger. His parents believe that the only way the boy can stay safe and remain Jewish is to avoid the prejudice on the streets and the ostracism in the schools, where Shabbat observance would be impossible and unkosher food would be served. The Rabbi helps the boy and his family emigrate to Israel. That is the central story of this hauntingly illustrated graphic novel for older readers. The story begins and ends with Zev seem...

José and the Pirate Captain Toledano by Arnon Z. Shorr, illustrated by Joshua M. Edelglass Kar-Ben Publishing (imprint of Lerner Publishing Group), 2022 Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Dena Bach Buy at Bookshop.org José Alfaro is a smart, mischievous teen who has always felt different from those around him yet yearns to be like everyone else. Unlike other children in his time and place, 16th century in the Caribbean, his father made him learn to read, write, and speak several languages, and let him help with his work as the colonial treasurer. Then the Spanish Inquisition comes, in the person of Captain de Guzman, who arrives in Santo Domingo to repair his ship after an attack by pirates. While there, de Guzman makes wager that he will uncover a heretic before his ship is repaired. When the heretic de Guzman finds is José’s father, José learns why he was raised to be different. José’s father tells him they are hidden Jews who fled the Inquisition in Portugal when he was just ...

 Why Is Everybody Yelling? Growing Up in My Immigrant Family by Marisabina Russo Farrar, Straus & Giroux Category: Young Adult Reviewer: Sandy Wasserman Buy at Bookshop.org This graphic memoir is by author/illustrator extraordinaire of over 35 picture books and illustrated books for older readers and novels. It's classified as a Tween or YA [or JB at one branch] in my library system, and appears to me to be a YA book at least. 230 pages, it is rich with artistic panels and much dense language. Comprised of 23 chapters, it spans the time in separate chapters from 1957 to 1967, the author's childhood and teen years. There is so much in each chapter: coming of age during the 50’s and 60’s, made more complicated by an absentee father and confusion about religion… We meet Marisabina in the first panel dressed in her white Communion dress, surrounded with Catholic ritual items yet the text and following comic panel feature Yiddish family members speaking Yiddish, so we enter Mari...

The Unfinished Corner by Dani Colman, illustrated by Rachel Petrovicz Wonderbound Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Stacy Nockowitz Buy at Bookshop.org Five days before her bat mitzvah, Miriam boards a bus with her friends Avi and David -- and her frenemy Judith -- bound for Washington, D.C. But the rabbi driving the bus has other plans for the kids. Instead of taking them on their “tikkun olam” outreach trip, Rabbi Yehudi (the cleverly disguised angel Ma’alchiel of the Ishim) brings the kids to a mysterious desert-like realm and charges them with the task of flushing out all the world’s evil beings and creatures. No problem, right? Thus begins a journey for the four children to find the unfinished corner of the universe, a small area that Hashem left unfinished when the world was created. The only way that Miriam and her friends can carry out the angel’s directive is to “finish” the unfinished corner. This is the unique premise of Dani Colman’s graphic novel The Unfinished Corner . Mir...

 Whistle: A New Gotham City Hero  by E. Lockhart, illustrated by Manuel Preitano DC Comics Category: Young Adult Reviewer: Heidi Rabinowitz Buy at Bookshop.org Willow Zimmerman is a white Jewish teen activist in Gotham City's Down River neighborhood, who gets mixed up in the criminal underworld in order to support her cancer-stricken mother. When an attack by Killer Croc leaves her with dog-like superpowers, she becomes Whistle, a hero who defends the neighborhood against crime, along with her Great Dane sidekick Lebowitz. Manuel Preitano's illustrations give us a female superhero who is portrayed as a realistic physically fit young woman, who devises a hero outfit that is comfortable and practical. She has a proud Jewish nose and big, curly, frizzy hair. Her bestie is Latinx and her crush is Black. These small details add up to a story that feels modern and real. First-person narration puts readers in the middle of the action, and in the middle of Willow's ethical quandar...

  Natan Sharansky: Freedom Fighter for Soviet Jews by Blake Hoena, illustrated by Daniele Dickmann Kar-Ben Publishing (imprint of Lerner) Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Shirley Reva Vernick Buy at Bookshop.org This graphic novel biography tells the story of Soviet “refusenik" and human rights activist Natan Sharansky. Through narration, dialogue and illustration, the book follows Sharansky’s youth in the Ukraine, his activism on behalf of Jewish refuseniks, his detention in Soviet prison/labor camps, and his ultimate immigration to Israel. In addition to portraying Sharansky as the hero among Soviet Jews, the book rightfully highlights the roles of his wife, international Jewish activists, and world leaders in paving the way for his and other Soviet Jews’ release. A short afterword summarizes Sharansky’s human rights work in Israel since his arrival in 1986.    This is a fast-paced and suspenseful story about the dangers of totalitarianism and the imperative o...

The Book of Secrets by Mat Tonti Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Gigi Pagliarulo Buy at Bookshop.org Author and illustrator Mat Tonti takes readers on a wild and unexpected ride in this fresh graphic novel take on traditional Jewish stories, embedding Jewish tales and folklore from a wide range of sources within a thoroughly modern narrative. Jewish siblings Ben and Rose are pulled into a dangerous mystery when they receive a mystical message from their missing Bubbe. As they discover the mysterious Book of Secrets, they become deeply immersed in its chapters -- a series of stories that will lead them along the path to rescuing their grandparents and preserving the history of their people -- if the Book’s characters themselves don’t take over first! The cryptic and powerful Doughlem, a Golem-like creature with the Hebrew word אמת baked into a crust atop his forehead, is a crucial throughline in this genre-traversing book, which weaves in tales from the Mishnah, the Midrash, Chasidim, ...

Dancing at the Pity Party: A Dead Mom Graphic Memoir by Tyler Feder Category: Young Adult Reviewer: Judith S. Greenblatt Tyler Feder got it right. Her graphic novel “Dancing at the Pity Party: a Dead Mom Graphic Memoir” is first and foremost honest about a subject we shy away from discussing. In the spring of Tyler’s sophomore year at college, her very special Mom, aged 47, dies. We are told the whole story in this book that is also heart felt and heart warming, very sad, and very funny. Yes, you will cry, but you will also laugh. We meet Tyler’s Mom, then follow the unfolding story, from first symptoms to diagnosis, death, burial, and, importantly, forever after, including those important firsts in the new and strange world of no Mom. This is a warm and loving family, portrayed with all its quirks. We learn what about Mom’s illness and death, but even more important we get to know Tyler’s and her family’s responses. A wonderful, refreshing honesty can be felt throughout the b...

We'll Soon by Home Again by Jessica Bab Bonde, illustrated by Peter Bergting, translated by Jessica Bab Bonde and Sunshine Barbito Reviewer: Meira Drazin Category: Young Adult Billed as a graphic novel, it’s hard to categorize WE’LL SOON BE HOME AGAIN by Jessica Bab Bonde and Peter Bergting. Published to critical acclaim in Sweden in 2018 and now published in the US by Dark Horse Comics, with translation by Bab Bonde and Sunshine Barbito, WE’LL SOON BE HOME AGAIN is a slim volume that tells the testimonies of six Holocaust survivors in graphic format. But its spare presentation packs a punch. Tobias, Livia, Selma, Susanna, Emerich and Elisabeth were all children when WWII and the Nazis cast their tentacles over their lives. As it says in the excellent foreword, the point of the book is that these children started out like “you and me”—possibly better—born into safety and comfort. And while the horrific results of racism and antisemitism were taking place, too many ...