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.
