The Book of Life

Guest poster: Emily Schneider   This February, and Adar in the Jewish calendar, marks the 40 th yahrtzeit of Sydney Taylor, author of that timeless chronicle of the Jewish immigrant experience, All-of-a-KindFamily , and its sequels. Ella, Henny, Sarah, Charlotte, and Gertie became mirrors for Jewish girls, who grew up recognizing themselves in her nostalgic portrait of Jewish life. Whether you were raised on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, in suburban Long Island, the outskirts of Philadelphia, or any other American shtetl , you knew you could identify with one of the sisters, all richly drawn personalities, and yet so generic and lasting that the family did not have a last name.   The four sisters of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women have also imprinted themselves on the consciousness of American girls since they first appeared in 1868.   This novel, with its idealized representation of New England family life during the Civil War, became a model for girls beginning to th

The Sydney Taylor Book Award Blog Tour is taking place February 4-8, 2018. Today, one of the blog tour stops is here at The Book of Life! We are interviewing Antonio Iturbe, author of Teen Readers Category winner, The Librarian of Auschwitz . English is not Antonio's first language, so it was very kind of him to tackle these questions for me! How did you learn about the library in Auschwitz and why did you choose to write about it? The way I found this story was by following threads in books. Reading expert Alberto Manguel wrote a book called The Library at Night , in which he talked about the most famous libraries in history: Alexandria, the Library of Congress… and in one chapter, in just a few lines, he mentioned that in the Children’s Block in the Auschwitz Camp there was a small, clandestine library of just eight books. Then I found more information in the book of the American Holocaust expert Nili Keren: Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp . It was the beginning