Chil­dren’s

More All-of-a-Kind Family

Syd­ney Taylor
  • Review
October 31, 2014

Full dis­clo­sure: I love the All-of-a-Kind Fam­i­ly! I wish I could be part of the All-of-a-Kind Fam­i­ly! That said, (the reis­sue of) this book, the sec­ond in the series, does not disap­point in any way, even a full six­ty years after its orig­i­nal pub­li­ca­tion. This book fol­lows the fur­ther adven­tures of the five sis­ters and one lit­tle broth­er of the All-of-a-Kind fam­i­ly, and their extend­ed fam­i­ly and friends. This time, the plots include a romance between Uncle Hyman and green­horn” Lena and anoth­er romance between old­est daugh­ter, Ella, and Jules. There’s the polio epi­dem­ic that sweeps through New York City and ends up touch­ing one of the book’s cen­tral char­ac­ters in a major way. There’s the move from the Low­er East Side up to the Bronx, which ends the book. And through­out, there are all the Jew­ish cus­toms to savor and the hol­i­days to cel­e­brate togeth­er. Most­ly the sto­ry is a qui­et one, com­prised of a series of small, inti­mate, and love­ly moments — the book is old-fash­ioned in the best sense. Over­all, it’s awful­ly hard to resist the charm of this ear­ly twen­ti­eth-cen­tu­ry fam­i­ly. High­ly rec­om­mend­ed for ages 8 – 12.

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