All-of-a-Kind Family

All-of-a-Kind Family

Author	Sydney Taylor
Illustrator	Helen John
Language	English
Genre	Children's novel
Publisher	Follett Publishing Company
Publication date	1951
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print
Pages	149 pp
ISBN	0440400597
Followed by	More All-of-a-Kind Family

All-of-a-Kind Family is a 1951 children's book by Sydney Taylor about a family of five American Jewish girls growing up on the Lower East Side of New York City in 1912.[1] It was followed by four sequels.

Background

All-of-a-Kind Family is based on Sydney Taylor's recollections of her childhood on Manhattan's Lower East Side, where her family settled along with many other Jewish families after migrating from Eastern Europe by way of Germany.[2] The main characters are named for Taylor's real-life sisters, Ella, Henny, Charlotte, and Gertrude, and the middle sister was given the author's birth name, Sarah.[3]

The book's genesis was stories of her childhood that Taylor would tell her daughter, Jo. Taylor wrote:

"I took my daughter Jo down to the old neighborhood where Papa, Mama and the five little girls had lived. But the past was dead there; it lived only in me. I decided to write it all down for Jo. Perhaps in this way I could re-create for both of us some feeling of that other life."[4]

While Taylor wrote All-of-a-Kind Family for her daughter, by some accounts[3] she had no plans to publish the story. But, the story goes, her husband secretly submitted the manuscript for the Charles W. Follett Award in 1951, and it won, launching Taylor's career and what would become a five-book series.[2]

The book is noteworthy for its depiction of a joint Jewish American identity, with the characters expressing both pride in their Jewish traditions and American patriotism, following the trajectory of Taylor's own family's assimilation. "Not only are Jewish customs explained honestly and frankly, but Taylor makes them attractive and positive, drawing in her readers, both Jewish and non-Jewish," the scholar June Cummins writes.[5]

Plot

Ella, Henny, Sarah, Charlotte, and Gertrude are five sisters growing up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in 1912. The book follows them through a year of their childhood, as they deal with mundane chores, find joy in eating candy in bed and collecting used books from their father's junk shop, recover from scarlet fever, and celebrate Jewish holidays such as Purim and Sukkot as well as the Fourth of July. They also inadvertently help their father's friend Charlie solve a mystery from his past and, in the end, welcome a new family member.[1]

Main characters

• Ella: The oldest of the five sisters, age 12, born 1900. She is based on the author's own eldest sister of the same name.
• Henrietta "Henny": The second sister, age 10, 1902. She is the most wild and mischievous one. She is the only one whose hair is blonde and curly.
• Sarah: The third sister, and the author's avatar. Age 8, 1904, as she was based on the author herself. She is the most practical and levelheaded one who values her education.
• Charlotte: The fourth sister with her head in the clouds, age 6, 1906. She is the most imaginative one of the sisters.
• Gertrude "Gertie": The youngest of the five sisters, age 4, 1908. Gertie looks up to Charlotte.
• Mama: The girls' mother, a resourceful homemaker.
• Papa: The girls' father, who runs a junk shop. He has several brothers.
• Kathy Allen: A kind librarian at the local library who befriends the girls. She is Charlie Graham's lost sweetheart.
• Herbert "Charlie" Graham: Papa's good non-Jewish friend, a junk peddler with a mysterious past whom Ella is secretly infatuated with. He is Kathy Allen's lost sweetheart.

Sequels

Taylor followed All-of-a-Kind Family with four sequels: More All-of-a-Kind Family, All-of-a-Kind Family Downtown, All-of-a-Kind Family Uptown, and Ella of All-of-a-Kind Family.[6] The final novel was published shortly after Taylor's death in 1978.[4] In 2018 a picture book sequel called All-of-a-Kind Family Hanukkah written by Emily Jenkins and illustrated by Paul O. Zelinsky[7] was named a Kirkus best book of 2018 and won the Sydney Taylor Book Award for Younger Readers in 2019. [8]

Awards and legacy

Taylor received the Charles W. Follett Award for All-of-a-Kind Family's contribution to children's literature in 1951.[4] All-of-a-Kind Family was also the first recipient of the Jewish Book Council's National Jewish Book Award for children's literature in 1952.[9] The book is considered foundational to the development of American Jewish children's literature,[10] and the Association of Jewish Libraries' annual children's literature award is named the Sydney Taylor Book Award in honor of Taylor's work.[11] The publisher Lizzie Skurnick, who reissued the All-of-a-Kind sequels, describes Taylor's depiction of American Jewish life as "completely singular. They’re the first series about a Jewish family ever, one that’s not only about the family, but about Jewish culture, New York, the turn of the century, vaudeville, polio, the rise of technology."[3]

References

1. Taylor, Sydney, 1904-1978. (1951). All-of-a-kind family. New York: Dell. ISBN 0-440-40059-7. OCLC 19596819.
2. "Sydney Taylor". JWA.org. Jewish Women's Archive. Retrieved 2020-04-28.
3. "Sydney Taylor: Bringing All-of-a-Kind Family into the World". Bloom. 2018-10-30. Retrieved 2020-04-28.
4. "Sydney Taylor, 73, Wrote Children's Books and Won Charles W. Follett Honor". The New York Times. 1978-02-14. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-04-28.
5. Cummins, June (September 2003). "Becoming an 'All-of-a-Kind' American: Sydney Taylor and Strategies of Assimilation" (PDF). The Lion and the Unicorn. 27 (3): 324–343. doi:10.1353/uni.2003.0032. S2CID 143561625 – via longwood.edu.
6. "Sydney Taylor". PenguinRandomhouse.com. Penguin Random House. Retrieved 2020-04-28.
7. "All-of-a-Kind Family Hanukkah". Penguin Random House. Retrieved 14 June 2021.
8. "Sydney Taylor Book Awards" (PDF). The Association of Jewish Libraries. Archived from the original (PDF) on 8 May 2021. Retrieved 14 June 2021.
9. "Past Winners". jewishbookcouncil.org. Jewish Book Council. Retrieved 2020-04-28.
10. "All-of-a-Kind Family". jewishbookcouncil.org. Jewish Book Council. 1951. Retrieved 2020-04-28.
11. "Sydney Taylor Book Award". jewishlibraries.org. Association of Jewish Libraries. Retrieved 2020-04-28.

External links

• All-of-a-Kind Family at the Jewish Book Council