4.0⭐️

Wonderful vignettes in the life of four Jewish girls in New York in 1916. I love learning the history and how the various Jewish holidays were conducted in an easy way to enjoy and understand. The wedding at the end was beautifully interesting.

Fave scenes: Charlie running up and down the stairs, the May Day ice cream and gathering the pigeons.

Yes, just what the doctor ordered after reading about the Holocaust. Cozy Jewish family stories--what could be a better balm for the soul?

The edition I read this time around had a lovely foreword by the late June Cummins, Sydney Taylor's biographer. Cummins explains a bit of the publishing history of More All-of-a-Kind Family, which came out in 1954, a year after the executions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Taylor's editor Esther Meeks encouraged Taylor to "Americanize" her books (All-of-a-Kind Family was being edited for publication during the height of the Rosenberg trial). An earlier edition of More shows the children celebrating May Day, with little Charlie in Uncle Sam garb as described on p. 105. As Cummins points out, May Day is not really an American holiday, but a pagan one dating farther back in history, and eventually May 1 became a workers' holiday around the world (the USA observes it on the first Monday in September). However, the Jewishness of the stories still marks the series. Yom Kippur and Hanukkah are celebrated, with illustrations showing candle-lighting, and a few prayers and songs are included, along with descriptions of traditional foods and activities.

Over the years, the immigrant nation of America has asked, can non-Protestant religious identities be "American?" Taylor demonstrates that Jewish and American identities can coexist in a happy family. As the family moves to the Bronx in the next book, they encounter a world outside their insular Jewish community (the Gentile characters in All-of-a-Kind Family were suggestions by Meeks, not part of Taylor's original story, but she worked them in seamlessly). Taylor's writing is effective, regardless of culture, when it comes to her humor and memorable characters. When she writes about culture, there is a note of genuine love for these practices that makes them enjoyable to read rather than dry descriptions. Even with episodic chapters, the stories stack on one another to create an enjoyable children's novel. For anyone hoping to communicate cultural practices to children outside of the community in which they are practiced, Taylor is a wise guide. I kept thinking of Maud Hart Lovelace's Betsy books when reading this. The locations are very different, and Ella is a few years younger than Betsy. Yet, each series shows American girlhood at the turn of the century with humor, pathos, and clarity. Taylor's picture of Jewish girlhood is just as memorable and nostalgic for me as Lovelace's, though culturally I have everything to share with Betsy and not as much with Ella and her sisters. The American experience--the human experience--goes across cultural boundaries.

The Association of Jewish Libraries gives out annual Sydney Taylor Book Awards (see here) and I plan to read through some of them. Taylor may have made some noble compromises on her way to publishing these books, but she opened the door for more mainstream publishers to put forth Jewish children's literature, and for that we can all be grateful.

I don't know why this is listed as the third book of the series. It's second, both in the storyline and when it was written.
Anyway, I read the series as a kid and decided to reread them. Some of the chapters are a snapshot of 1916 (like the one in which an epidemic of infantile paralysis [polio] hits the city), and some could happen anytime (like the one in which Gertie lies about being able to tell time on an analog clock but eventually figures it out). The one part that would probably get "canceled" by today's standards was when Henny, accompanied by her friend, comes home after her curfew. It's dark in the hallway and Papa is so mad he starts spanking someone who he thinks is Henny, but turns out to be her friend! Their mom says something like, "Oh, dear, how will I explain this to her mother?", and I also wanted to know the answer to that, but it was the end of the chapter. These days it would be a definite lawsuit!

This book was published in ‘54, so it’s actually the SECOND in the chapter series, not the third as per Goodreads.

An uncle gets married!

The entire wedding ceremony and rituals (mikvah, fasting, chuppah, kazachok folk dance) and celebration is completely explored for children to behold. The family always has lots of commotion and 5 girls and 1 boy makes all the children in this family, wherein Papa is a peddler, and Momma is supportive and lovingly involved.

I only ever read the first one when a girl, and so it’s extra delicious to read the entire series today. All of Taylor’s books were re-released five years ago.

All of these books are going to be rated 5

this series is so charming and i still love it even now that i'm grown-up

The All-of-a-Kind Family return in this second delightful tale - and yes, despite the effort of some to re-order these by chronology, More All-of-a-Kind Family is the second book! - and their adventures here are more fun, more amusing, more poignant, and more heartwarming than in their first, the eponymous n  All-of-a-Kind Familyn! The book opens with the marvelous "Lena the Greena" chapter, which introduces the titular Lena who, in an act of bravery, saves Little Charlie, who has wandered into the street, right into the path of an oncoming carriage. From this dramatic beginning, the narrative moves on, once again chronicling matters large and small in the life of this loving, close-knit Jewish family living on the Lower East Side of New York City during the early years of the twentieth century. Here we see eldest daughter Ella experiencing her very first crush (begun at the library, of course!), we witness fun-loving Henny getting into quite a scrape (for which her friend Fanny pays the price!), and we follow along as youngest daughter Gertie finally learns to tell time. We have the amusement of baby Charlie's chapter, in which he toddles up and down the stairs until he finally gets what he wants: namely, his mother to smile at him. But then we have the heartbreak of the chapters in which Lena becomes ill, and her marriage to Uncle Hyman is called off. The book closes with a momentous change, as the family prepare to move away from the crowded Lower East Side, to the leafy uptown Bronx...

I adore all of the books about the All-of-a-Kind family, but this may be my very favorite. There is a deepening of feeling in More All-of-a-Kind Family that is immensely moving, a sense that the people being depicted are real, walking right out of the 1910s, across the pages of the book, and into my heart. The romantic in me loved the story-line involving Charlie and the Library Lady in the first entry in the series, but the relationship between Uncle Hyman and Lena here is so much more real to me, so much more precious. I get teary EVERY SINGLE TIME I read the exchange between Mama and Lena at the house in Far Rockaway, in which Mama attempts to reason with a hurting and very stubborn Lena. I can still recall the revelation it was to me, reading this for the first time as a young girl, that one could act with the conviction of doing right, of sparing others, but really be motivated by a certain kind of thoughtless self-involvement. I feel proud EVERY SINGLE TIME I read Papa's little speech at the end of the book, in which he tells his girls that America is a truly wonderful country, where everyone has the chance to better themselves. Then I get teary again (EVERY SINGLE TIME) when he maintains that they, the All-of-a-Kind Family, have never been poor, because they have had each other. Although all the books are marvelous, and although I tend to reread the first book most often, this second installment is the absolute best in my opinion - a masterpiece of children's literature! Recommended to everyone who reads, with the caveat that they should read n  All-of-a-Kind Familyn first.

This series has such a special place in my heart from childhood, this book is a delight ❤️

I couldn't remember which one had the quarantine (the first one) so re-read this one to see. I loved these as a kid and love them still.

I can't figure out if I've ever read this one before. I know we owned the first book, Uptown and Downtown, and I'm pretty sure I've read Ella, but I'm just not sure about More All-of-a-Kind Family. I feel like I remember Gertie learning to tell time, and Uncle Hyman's girlfriend, but I have no recollection of Ella first meeting Jules (though I remember him from Uptown).

That said, I liked it very much. After Downtown (which was written later, but set earlier), it was refreshing to go back to the familiar charming tone that Taylor created in the first book. Baby Charlie is now a real little person, and Gertie isn't a baby anymore either.

I think when I'm done with these books, I'm going to have to do some comparisons to Betsy-Tacy. It's very nearly the same time period, but oh, so different in many ways.

The best thing about these books is the lingering, loving way she describes meals. The making-latkes episode is one of the most exciting things I've read in months. Overall, not quite as charming as the first. Least expected sentence:
'"I'd better get out my Prince Albert," Papa said.'