All-Of-A-Kind Family

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Summary: A great book.
Review: I loved it!!!! It was so good, I immediatly went to the library and took out the sequals. I reccomend it to all people!!!

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Summary: A refreshing focus on the family in today's diverse society!
Review: All Of a Kind Family touches my heart in different ways each time I re-read it. The story of a young family struggling to make ends meet and doing it with love and joy is heart-warming indeed. I have watched "Mama" as she employs crafty ideas to teach her five girls life lessons they will remember forever. The holidays and religious rites they share are so clearly described that a Protestant,like me,now has a clearer picture of the Jewish faith. This loving family with a strong father figure, a nurturing mother figure, five congenial sisters, and a bundle of joy is quite refreshing and encouraging to read about in times like these. All Of a Kind Family has made an impact on my life and I plan to re-read it many times and share it with my own little "all of a kind" family.

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Summary: A fabulous book for young readers...or any reader!
Review: Made up of vignette-like chapters focusing on the life of a Jewish family in '20s-'30s New York City, this book left more imprints on my imagination than any other book I read as a child. Most memorable to me were the chapters about holiday celebrations; to a Protestant girl, these descriptions of rituals, traditions, songs, prayers, and, especially, food, were magical. I didn't know about Passover, Purim, or Rosh Hashana; nor did I know about smoked salmon, gefilte fish, or hamen taschen. I do recall my mouth watering as I read about these foods, dishes that I would normally dismiss as weird or too foreign. The settings, the characters, the happiness evoked by the religious celebrations made the culinary descriptions so lively, almost central to the lives in the stories. Since then, I notice the literary allusions to food more frequently; I appreciate them more, and see their purpose in most novels or stories. I think any young child--girls, in particular--would treasure the stories of the All-of-a-Kind Family. At the age of 22, I still go back to these stories for comfort, to bring back the memories of when I was learning to read "chapter books." I'm saving the entire series for my own children, hoping they'll mean as much to them as they do to me. Amanda Quick Detroit, MI

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Summary: Learning about ones roots can be warm and family centered.
Review: In these violent days, when the world around us gives our children no pause to reflect on their ancestors, it is a welcome relief to sit down and curl up with this book by Sydney Taylor. My grandmother, who was an immigrant about the time that this book was set in, used to tell me of the sacrifices they made to come over. How Judaism changed to meet the needs of the families and how the families kept Judaism in a new country. Now that I have lost my grandmother and there is no one to tell my children and grandchildren about the struggles that the Jews in America faced in the early 1900's, I turn to these books for a warm and honest view of how it felt to be an American, a Jewish American, in a land of great opportunity. THe struggle of the Jews to better themselves is well described and the family centered life, where God is a friend you can talk to, makes this book worth a million dollars.

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Summary: Lost Childhood treasure
Review: I have this book already. The cover is gone. The back pages are ripped but it is one of my favorite stories. I am 32 now and am reading it for the 100th time. :) And in the middle of reading about Sarah losing her library book, I thought of Amazon. You have it and 2 others about my favorite family!!! I'm thrilled that now I can order the books to treasure for 32 more years!!

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Summary: for anyone with a heart and hunger
Review: My childhood favorite! All the books in this series were read again and again, and sometimes outloud, by me and my four siblings. Fun, funny, endearing and memorable. Right up there with I REMEMBER MAMA, FARMER BOY, LITTLE HOUSE IN THE BIG WOODS, and ON THE BANKS OF PLUM CREEK. A timeless slice of life for kids ages 3 to 18 to enjoy!

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Summary: Loved in our Family
Review: Everyday my 3 year old boy listens to the audio tape of All of a Kind Family 3-5 times. He calls it his "little girls tape" and sits in front of the stereo drinking in the stories. While he loves the Little House in the Prairies cd's this is his long time favourite. We have listened to this continually for a year now and he has every word memorised... I should know because he often starts to retell the stories (verbatim) and my wife and I have to listen to this little gentile kid retell jewish stories. Anyway, it is a fantastic slice of life and definately helps us to inculcate the kind of values that we want in our family.

Rating:
Summary: one of the best ever
Review: I happened upon a copy of this book at a rummage sale when I was seven years old and have enjoyed it ever since. Though it is never laugh-out-loud funny, it is highly entertaining and definitely falls into the category of feel-good books. Author Sydney Taylor created sweet and interesting characters whose lives you immediately want to follow.

The story chronicles the lives of five Jewish sisters growing up in New York at the turn of the century. Four-year-old Gertie is the baby of the family. Six-year-old Charlotte is a daydreamer who is idolised by her little sister. Eight-year-old Sarah cannot be better described than by Taylor, who refers to her in the narrative as "always the practical one". Ten-year-old Henny is the impish, mischievous one of the bunch (and they need one, considering how docile the other daughters usually are!). Twelve-year-old Ella is the oldest daughter, a talented singer with a big crush on her father's friend Charlie, who is hiding a secret.

The story chronicles the lives of the family throughout their various trials and tribulations over the year. If my sister and I are any indication, any reader will want to read and re-read it!