Heartwarming little tales of the day to day life of a Jewish family from a by-gone era. Reminds me of the Little House on the Prairie series. Chapters are short and the book is very quick to get through. I think I would have enjoyed reading this series with young kids back in the day had I known about it.

These books are underappreciated! In my mind they rank with the Little House books - every little girl should read them!

I read this SO MANY TIMES when I was a little kid. Even after not reading it for nearly 50 years, I still recalled so much of the story. It was such an enjoyable reread, I felt so happy while reading it.

I moved to NYC a few years ago and since then have wanted to reread this series since I live so close to the Lower East Side. It was fun to be reading the book on the subway and then when getting off to run errands to walk down streets named in the book. I returned a library book at the girl's library (Seward Park Library, a lovely Carnegie library renovated a few years ago). I walked down Rivington St, where Mama shopped for Shabbat meals, and bought some candy at Economy Candy. Ok, yes, Economy opened in 1937 but still, it's got the old timey vibe. I stopped and got a bagel with lox at Russ & Daughters(opened 1914) and read the book while eating. It was a lovely afternoon. Boy, has the neighborhood changed since 1912/13 when the book is set! Lots of trendy places but there are still a few older businesses interspersed between the weed shops and bars and art galleries.

Reading this has cemented my desire to keep rereading my favorite books from childhood. They are good palate cleaners between heavier adult novels.

I read this with my daughters (ages 4 and 8) and we all enjoyed it. The time and place are wonderfully evoked, and we were caught up in all the minor dramas of the five sisters' lives. A great read-alike for the Little House books (or even better, without the overt racism!).

Charming, sweet, heartwarming and thoughtful! This entire series is a gem. The family is so sweet, so tight-knit. While the book is a pure pleasure to read simply because you will love the family so much, it's also interesting from a historical/social standpoint to read about early 1900s America and this Jewish family's experience. UPDATE 10/2019: Rereading this for the first time as a mother, and sharing it with my oldest (six-years-old) was a wonderful experience. My love for this story only deepens now that I can more fully appreciate Mama's perspective, and admire all the more her patience and ingenuity and the wisdom and love she gives to her girls. Moreover, it was a delight seeing my son engage with the story. While a few aspects were a bit beyond him (particularly the bits focusing on Ella and her crush on Charlie) he really engaged with some of the segments, such as the hidden penny housecleaning game (ah, Mama, you clever one!) and the children pooling their money to buy Papa a birthday present, and building the Succah. I cannot recommend this highly enough! If you have loved other books about loving families in bygone eras, don't miss it!

Love this story of a Jewish family in New York City in the 1910s. The emotional realism and the vivid description and detail of various Jewish holidays and foods were delightful. One of my favorite things about it is the dedication page: " To my mother and father who made it possible; To my husband who made it probable."

We loved to learn so much about the Jewish culture through this book.

A wonderful example of a close knit family.

July 2023 - Juliet didn't remember this book at all (she was only 5 when we read it four years ago) and she LOVED listening to it again this time. She kept asking me to listen to more of it! And I can't count how many times I've read it, but I thoroughly enjoyed it again.
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Finished again: May 2019! I was right, it was a good one to read aloud - the girls loved it!

(My full review from September 2012 is below.)
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I adored the All-of-a-Kind Family books by Sydney Taylor as a kid. They're a series of books about five sisters: Ella, Henrietta (Henny), Sarah, Charlotte, and Gertie, ages 12, 10, 8, 6, and 4.

They live in a tiny apartment in turn of the 20th century New York City. Their family is devoutly Jewish, and the girls' lives are regulated by school, their Friday trip to the library, and their weekly Sabbath celebration.

It's funny, because I never realized it till I reread All-Of-A-Kind Family, but a lot of what I know about Jewish culture, I got from these books. They discuss the foods they eat, the major Jewish holidays, and how life functions in a poor, hard-working Jewish family. Their father is a "rag man" - who collects rags from peddlers, and then bundles them and sells them. Their mother is a very busy woman, who keeps their tiny apartment spotless and keeps five little girls neat and tidy in their dresses and petticoats and itchy woolen stockings. As the eldest two, organized Ella and tomboyish Henny are the leaders, but all five girls are sweet and full of character - even when a very big surprise comes to the All-of-a-Kind-Family at the end of the book!

This would be a great book to read aloud to a younger kid chapter by chapter, because each chapter pretty much stands alone. Several of them center on their visits to the library, one is about the five girls shopping for a birthday gift for Papa, in one chapter Gertie and Charlotte sneak crackers into their bed, and in another chapter Sarah and Ella get scarlet fever. Other chapters cover Rosh Hashanah, the 4th of July, and a trip to Coney Island.

A charming book that would doubtless have entranced me as a girl. As an adult reader, I can think that the sentimental subplot of long-lost love detracts somewhat from an otherwise delightfully everyday story of family life. However, this is a flaw easy enough to forgive, and the glimpse into turn-of-the-century life in the Jewish sector of New York City brings just enough novelty that the book does not become just another tale of a gaggle of sisters somewhere in an olden era.

I love to read good children's literature and this book of a bygone era (1912) was informative and charming. I was hoping this might be the book I would choose to read with my grade-school grandchildren this summer, but I am not sure if it would meet the diverse needs. I loved the family solidarity and I particularly enjoyed the traditional religious observances. If I do choose this for the summer, I would look for a book on Jewish traditions with pictures to share with the children. I would like them to have a broader understanding of different cultures, places and even times.

Yesterday while tending two grandchildren ages almost four and six, I read them the first two chapters of this book. They were very engaged with the first chapter and couldn't understand how children could not own their own books. The little girl, six, loved the second chapter with bright buttons and dusting, but her brother left in the middle to find toys. What a nice teaching tool it provided for us to talk about the value of a penny and that a family could be happy even if they were not affluent.

Now it goes to a granddaughter age nine who will read it to her six year old sister. It is definitely worth sharing, and I will be very interested in their response. Will all of the religious observances and the different food be too much? Who knows?

Thanks to Brina for suggesting it and to Beth for helping me to find a copy.

Loved sharing this with the girls this spring. The girls particularly enjoyed the chapters about Papa's birthday and about the birth of the new baby. I found the chapter about celebrating the Passover under quarantine particularly timely.

One of the great delights of my childhood, Sydney Taylor's All-of-a-Kind Family books were some of my absolute favorites as a girl, and I have read and reread them countless times over the years. Unlike some readers, they didn't serve as my introduction to Judaism - my father sat on a number of ecumenical and interfaith councils, and my first experience of Jewish religious tradition was probably the Passover Seder we attended at the home of a rabbi friend of his, when I was very young - but they did give me a serious case of Purim envy. Honestly - what child wouldn't want to partake of a holiday in which you're allowed to dress up in costumes, encouraged to make noise, and given lots of treats? I have this vivid memory of accompanying my mother to the city on one of those "take your child to work" days, and passing a branch of the New York Public Library that had a copy of n  Ella of All-of-a-Kind Familyn on display in the window. Having had, until that moment, no idea that there even was a fifth story about this marvelous family, I was simply beside myself with excitement (even then, the NYPL was a place of magic) and made my mother march in at once and check it out for me. Ah, what a day that was...

All of which is to say, I simply adore these books. They are a treasured artifact of my childhood, but they are also phenomenally good books, in as far as I am able to judge these things objectively. The story of a loving Jewish family living in New York City's Lower East Side in the early years of the 20th century, they chronicle both the everyday occurrences and the special occasions (whether religious or secular) that make up their world. This first one is so familiar to me, that I have only to look at the cover, and I can instantly call to mind the opening of the book, in which Ella, Henny, Charlotte and Gertie wait impatiently for slowpoke Sarah to get home, so they can all go to the library. As someone who went to the library every week as well, my childhood self entered immediately into this story of girls so like me, and yet also unlike me. I could probably list all the chapters from memory - the one with the button game (got to get those girls to dust properly!), the one with the candy and cracker-eating in bed, the Purim one (naturally), the one where everyone but Henny gets Scarlet Fever, the one at Coney Island, the one where Charlie and his long-lost lady love are reunited (sigh!) under the Sukkah - although I might not string them together in quite the correct order. Memorable, entertaining, heartwarming, informative - these stories have it all! Even the artwork, contributed here by illustrator Helen John, is dear to me.

Having now reread All-of-a-Kind Family for at least the hundredth time - I have decided to revisit the series, in order to read the newly published picture-book, n  All-of-a-Kind Family Hanukkahn - I can confirm that it holds up as well as it ever has, and is every bit as superb as I remembered it to be. Recommended to anyone who enjoys well-written family stories, engaging historical fiction, fiction featuring Jewish children, vintage girls' books - in short, good reads, full stop!