2015 SYDNEY TAYLOR BOOK AWARDS ANNOUNCED BY AJL

Jim Aylesworth and Barbara McClintock, author and illustrator of My Grandfather’s Coat, Loic Dauvillier, Marc Lizano and Greg Salsedo, authors and illustrators of Hidden: A Child's Story of the Holocaust, and Donna Jo Napoli, author of Storm, are the 2015 winners of the Sydney Taylor Book Award.

The Sydney Taylor Book Award honors new books for children and teens that exemplify the highest literary standards while authentically portraying the Jewish experience. The award memorializes Sydney Taylor, author of the classic All-of-a-Kind Family series. The winners will receive their awards at the Association of Jewish Libraries Conference in Washington, D.C. this June.

Aylesworth and McClintock will receive the 2015 gold medal in the Sydney Taylor Book Award’s Younger Reader category for My Grandfather’s Coat, published by Scholastic Press. This retelling of the classic tale celebrates the clever recycling of a beloved coat that lasts through four generations until it becomes its own story. The illustrations are heartwarming and add much charm to the story. Dauvillier, Lizano and Salsedo will receiver the 2015 gold medal in the Sydney Taylor Book Award’s Older Reader’s category for Hidden: A Child's Story of the Holocaust, published by First Second, an imprint of Roaring Brook Press. In this sensitive graphic novel, a French grandmother tells her granddaughter the story of how she and her mother survived the Holocaust with the help of several righteous gentiles. Donna Jo Napoli will receive the 2015 gold medal in the Sydney Taylor Book Award’s Teen category for Storm, a Paula Wiseman Book, published by Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers. This clever retelling of the Noah story features a sixteen year old girl who stows away on the ark and witnesses the dynamics of Noah and his family as they struggle to care for the animals under the stress of living together in close quarters.

Six Sydney Taylor Honor Books were named for 2015. For Younger Readers, Goldie Takes a Stand, written by Barbara Krasner and illustrated by Kelsey Garrity-Riley, published by Kar-Ben, a division of Lerner Publishing Group, and Never Say a Mean Word Again: A Tale from Medieval Spain, written by Jacqueline Jules and illustrated by Durga Yael Bernhard, published by Wisdom Tales, were selected. Death by Toilet Paper by Donna Gephart, published by Delacorte Press, and Whispering Town by Jennifer Elvgren, illustrated by Fabio Santomauro, published by Kar-Ben, are Honor books in the Older Readers category. For Teen Readers, the Honor books are Isabel’s War by Lila Perl, published by Lizzie Skurnick Books, an imprint of Ig Publishing and Like No Other by Una LaMarche, published by Razor Bill, an imprint of Penguin Group.

Winners and Honor recipients will be participating in a blog tour February 8-13, 2015. A schedule for the blog tour will be posted at www.jewishlibraries.org/blog.

In addition to the medal winners, the Award Committee designated sixteen Notable Books of Jewish content for 2015. More information about the Sydney Taylor Book Award can be found at www.SydneyTaylorBookAward.org.

The complete list of 2015 winners, honors, and notable books can be found here.