Sydney Taylor

All-Of-A-Kind Family

Sarah Sammis

Back in April I read and reviewed All-of-a-Kind Family Uptown by Sydney Taylor. Having so enjoyed it I went back to read the first in the series, All-of-a-Kind Family.

This first novel introduces the family, five girls, who jokingly call themselves an "all-of-a-kind" family since they don't have any brothers. As with the Uptown novel, the is told as a series of vignettes over the course of a year. One can track the timeline by following the Jewish holidays they celebrate: Passover, Purim and so forth.

The book is more than just a primer for American Jewish culture and religion. It is a heartwarming story of a family facing the day to day struggles that any family faces: illness, finance, emotional upheaval and just the general chaos of parenting children.

The mother plays a more active role in this book. She comes up with an ingenious way to make the girls do their cleaning chores (something I plan to implement with my two children when they are a little older), the frustration of a child who suddenly refuses to eat (another thing I have in common with her), the personal sacrifices a parent will make when a child is ill and finally the exhaustion of parenting while pregnant. I really enjoyed getting to know her better.

All of these threads are woven through the fabric of Europe on the verge of WWI. Reading All-of-a-Kind Family will give one an appreciation for what life was like more than 90 years ago.

All-Of-A-Kind Family

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