All-of-a-Kind Family by Sydney Taylor

Oh my goodness. I completely forgot that this book existed, and I have NO IDEA HOW I FORGOT ABOUT IT. I started reading it and it was like fireworks were going off in my brain on every page as it all came flooding back and seeming so familiar. I know I read this book dozens of times, because I knew every story and recognized every illustration, but for some reason the name of the book really doesn't seem that familiar to me. I don't remember it as a childhood favorite like I do Betsy-Tacy, for example. But I am so happy to have rediscovered it and I hope my kids want to read it too.

This book reminded me of a happy shiny version of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, where the family isn't so desperately poor and the kids are happy and well-fed and nobody is assaulted or ever feels in danger. It's set around the same time period and in New York City, but the family in this story is Jewish so there is a lot of detail and information about how they celebrate Jewish holidays and go to the Jewish market. I vividly remember some of these stories, like when they are given a bunch of books from their father's junk shop and how they sit and go through them, deciding which ones they should take. Or when one of the girls loses her library book and they have to go apologize for it at the library. I just love, love this story of this sweet, happy family. I think I love these old-fashioned, long-ago stories because you get to learn about how things were 100+ years ago, but also they didn't have so many of the problems or annoying things that books written today have, like issues with kids being disrespectful to parents, etc. I am sure this is not great literature--the things that make it differ from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, like it's happy shininess and ignorance of all the unpleasant aspects of life, probably knock it out of that category--but it's a perfect book for young children to read and I look forward to reading it with my kids.

Edited later: I read this to Dane a few months after reading it myself and he loved it. He asked if there were more books in the series after we finished, and I said there were, but we don't have them. And he begged me to get them. He especially loved how it ended with them getting a baby brother, and was so proud that he guessed what was happening. So definitely a good read together.