Sydney Tyler
Winners 2024
The Year’s Winners
The Association of Jewish Libraries proudly announces its coveted Sydney Taylor Book Awards for 2023 for the most distinguished contributions to Jewish children’s literature that authentically portray the Jewish experience.
Winners receive cash prizes from the estate of Sydney Taylor, author of the All-of-a-Kind-Family series. Taylor’s success created American Jewish children’s literature. Retired librarian Ellen Cole recommends these special books.
The 2024 Picture Book Winner is Two New Years
Warm illustrations evoking paper cutting traditions of Jewish and Chinese cultures reveal two celebrations full of joy and light. Readers follow a Chinese Jewish family celebrating two new years: Rosh Hashanah in fall, and Lunar New Year in early spring.
The 2024 Middle Grade Winner is The Dubious Pranks of Shaindy Goodman
Lonely preteen Shaindy is lured into assisting popular Gayil with pranks targeting students in their all-girls Orthodox Jewish MS. When consequences escalate, Shaindy must decide whether fitting in is worth the cost in this subtly thrilling story of friendship, consequences, and forgiveness.
The 2024 Young Adult winner is The Blood Years
A riveting historical fiction inspired by the author’s grandÂmother’s experience in Holocaust-era Romania introduces teenagers struggling to survive. Growing up in Czernowitz with a protective grandfather and an unstable mother, Rieke Teitler and her older sister Astra must reinvent their days when war breaks out and their beloved community is invaded by two different armies: Russian and German.
THE ELEVEN 2024 HONOR WINNERS IN THREE CATEGORIES ARE:
Picture Books:
Afikomen
Hanukkah Upside Down
Hidden Hope : How a Toy and a Hero Saved lives During the Holocaust
Middle Grade Books:
Don’t Want to be Your Monster
The Jake Show
Not So Shy
A Sky Full of Song
Young Adult Books:
Courage to Dream : Tales of Hope in the Holocaust
Going Bicoastal
Impossible Escape: A True Story of Survival and Heroism in Nazi Europe
Wrath Becomes Her
THE THREE 2024 NOTABLE BOOKS IN TWO CATEGORIES ARE:
Picture Books:
The Rabbi and his Donkey Zhen
Yu and the Snake
Middle Grade Books:
The Witch of the Woodland
