LibGuides: Sydney Taylor Book Award: 2020

2020

Gold Medalists (Winners)

Book Rescuer by Sue Macy, author ; Stacy Innerst, illustrator

The Book Rescuer by Sue Macy; Stacy Innerst (Illustrator)
Call Number: Easy B LAN (Easy Biography)
ISBN: 9781481472203
Publication Date: 2019-10-01
Over the last forty years, Aaron Lansky has jumped into dumpsters, rummaged around musty basements, and crawled through cramped attics. He did all of this in pursuit of a particular kind of treasure, and he's found plenty. Lansky's treasure was any book written in Yiddish, the language of generations of European Jews. When he started looking for Yiddish books, experts estimated there might be about 70,000 still in existence. Since then, the MacArthur Genius Grant recipient has collected close to 1.5 million books, and he's finding more every day.

White Bird : a Wonder Story by R. J. Palacio

White Bird : a Wonder Story by R. J. Palacio
Call Number: Juv G PAL (Juvenile Graphic Books)
ISBN: 9780525645535
Publication Date: 2019-10-01
Tells the story of Julian's Grandmére's childhood as she, a Jewish girl, was hidden by a family in a Nazi-occupied French village during World War II and how the boy she once shunned became her savior and best friend.

Someday We Will Fly by Rachel DeWoskin

Someday We Will Fly by Rachel Dewoskin
Call Number: YA F DEW-R
ISBN: 9780670014965
Publication Date: 2019-01-22
Lillia, fifteen, flees Warsaw with her father and baby sister in 1940 to try to make a new start in Shanghai, China, but the conflict grows more intense as America and Japan become involved.

Silver Medalists (Honor Books)

Gittel's Journey by Lesléa Newman, author ; Amy June Bates, illustrator
The Key from Spain : Flory Jagoda and Her Music by Debbie Levy, author ; Sonja Wimmer, illustrator

Gittel's Journey by Lesléa Newman; Amy June Bates (Illustrator)
Call Number: Easy NEW (Easy Fiction)
ISBN: 9781419727474
Publication Date: 2019-02-05
Loosely based on true stories told to the author by her grandmother and aunt about their voyage to America.

The Key from Spain : Flory Jagoda and her music by Sonja Wimmer (Illustrator); Debbie Levy
Call Number: Easy B JAG (Easy Biography)
ISBN: 9781541522183
Publication Date: 2019-08-01
Just as her ancestors were forced to leave Spain during the Inquisition, Flory flees Europe for a new life in the United States, bringing with her a precious harmoniku and a passion for Ladino music.

Anya and the Dragon by Sofiya Pasternack
Games of Deception : the True Story of the First U.S. Olympic Basketball Team at the 1936 Olympics in Hitler's Germany by Andrew Maraniss

Anya and the Dragon by Pasternack, Sofiya
Call Number: Juv F PAS (Juvenile Fiction)
ISBN: 9780358006077
Publication Date: 2019-09-24
In an alternate ninth century, twelve-year-old Anya and a new friend face a Viking and a tsar to protect the water dragon that saved her life, putting her family's home at risk.

Games of Deception : the true story of the first U.S. Olympic basketball team at the 1936 Olympics in Hitler's Germany by Andrew Maraniss
Call Number: YA 796.48 MAR-A
ISBN: 9780525514633
Publication Date: 2019-11-05
July 1936. Thousands of people cheered as the U.S. Olympic teams boarded the S.S. Manhattan, bound for Berlin. Among the athletes were the 14 players representing the first-ever U.S. Olympic basketball team. In Germany, Jewish people and political opponents of the Nazis were the targets of vicious mistreatment, but international visitors wouldn't see any signs of trouble in Berlin. Maraniss covers the sport's Olympic debut in Berlin and the eclectic mix of people, events and propaganda on both sides of the Atlantic that made it all possible.

Dissenter on the Bench : Ruth Bader Ginsburg's Life and Work by Victoria Ortiz
Sick Kids in Love by Hannah Moskowitz

Dissenter on the Bench : Ruth Bader Ginsburg's Life and Work by Victoria Ortiz
Call Number: YA B GIN-RB (Young Adult Biography)
ISBN: 9780544973640
Publication Date: 2019-06-04
The life and career of the fiercely principled Supreme Court Justice, now a popular icon, with dramatic accounts of her landmark cases that moved the needle on legal protection of human rights, illustrated with b/w archival photographs

Sick Kids in Love by Hannah Moskowitz
Call Number: YA F MOS-H (Young Adult Fiction)
ISBN: 9781640637320
Publication Date: 2019-11-05
Isabel has one rule: no dating. It's easier-it's safer-it's better-for the other person. She's got issues. She's got secrets. She's got rheumatoid arthritis. But then she meets another sick kid. He's got a chronic illness Isabel's never heard of, something she can't even pronounce. He understands what it means to be sick. He understands her more than her healthy friends. He understands her more than her own father, who's a doctor. He's gorgeous, fun, and foul-mouthed. And totally into her. Isabel has one rule: no dating. It's complicated-it's dangerous-it's never felt better-to consider breaking that rule for him.

Bronze Medalists (Notable Books)

Doctor Esperanto and the Language of Hope by Mara Rockliff ; illustrated by Zosia Dzierzawska
A Scarf for Keiko by Ann Malaspina ; illustrated by Merrilee Liddiard
Parrots, Pugs and Pixie Dust : a Book About Fashion Designer Judith Leiber

Doctor Esperanto and the Language of Hope by Mara Rockliff; Zosia Dzierzawska (Illustrator)
Call Number: Juv 499.992 ROC (Juvenile Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780763689155
Publication Date: 2019-03-12
Life was harsh in the town of Bialystok, particularly for a Jewish boy like Leyzer Zamenhof. But Leyzer thought he knew the reason for the anger and distrust. With every group speaking a different language, how could people understand each other? Without understanding, how could there be peace? Zamenhof had an idea: a "universal" second language everyone could speak. But a language that would be easy to learn was not easy to invent, especially when even his own father stood between him and his dream. Yet when at last in 1887 "Doctor Esperanto" sent his words into the world, a boy's idea became a community that spread across the globe.
A Scarf for Keiko by Malaspina, Ann ; Merrilee Liddiard (Illustrator)
Call Number: Easy MAL (Easy Fiction)
ISBN: 9781541521643
Publication Date: 2019-02-01
In Little Tokyo, Los Angeles, in 1942, after Sam's Japanese neighbor, Keiko, is sent to an internment camp with her family, he makes a special effort to send her a gesture of friendship.
Parrots, Pugs, and Pixie Dust by Deborah Blumenthal; Masha D'yans (Illustrator)
Call Number: Easy B LEI (Easy Biography)
ISBN: 9781499808988
Publication Date: 2019-09-17
Traces the life of fashion designer Judith Leiber, who used inspiration from her life to create extraordinary and fantastical handbags.

Masters of Silence by Kathy Kacer
A Boy is Not a Bird by Edeet Ravel
Rachel's Roses by Ferida Wolff

Masters of Silence by Kathy Kacer
Call Number: Juv F KAC H2 (Juvenile Fiction)
ISBN: 9781773212623
Publication Date: 2019-03-12
The second book in the middle grade series Heroes Quartet brings to light the little-known story of Marcel Marceau's heroic work for the French Resistance during WWII. Desperate to save her children from the Nazis, Henry and Helen's mother takes them to France to hide them in a convent disguised as orphans. During their stay at the convent, they experience visits from a local mime as the children's one source of joy, especially for Henry, whose traumatic experience has left him a selective mute. When an informer gives them up, the children are forced to flee yet again and the mime-a not yet famous Marcel Marceau-risks everything to save them.
A Boy Is Not a Bird by Ravel, Edeet
Call Number: Juv F RAV (Juvenile Fiction)
ISBN: 9781773061740
Publication Date: 2019-09-03
A young boy named Natt finds his world overturned when his family is uprooted and exiled to Siberia during the occupation of the Soviet Ukraine by Nazi Germany. In 1941, life in Natt's small town of Zastavna is comfortable and familiar, even if the grownups are acting strange, and his parents treat him like a baby. Natt knows there's a war on, of course, but he's glad their family didn't emigrate to Canada when they had a chance. His mother didn't want to leave their home, and neither did he. He especially wouldn't want to leave his best friend, Max. Max is the ideas guy, and he hears what's going on in the world from his older sisters. Together the boys are two brave musketeers. Then one day Natt goes home and finds his family huddled around the radio. The Russians are taking over.
Rachel's Roses by Wolff, Ferida ; Margeaux Lucas (Illustrator)
Call Number: Juv F WOL (Juvenile Fiction)
ISBN: 9780823443659
Publication Date: 2019-08-20
In the Lower East Side of Manhattan during the early 1900s, third-grader Rachel's mother boldly starts her own dressmaking business and Rachel discovers the perfect way to set herself apart from tagalong little sister Hannah on Rosh Hashanah.

In the Neighborhood of True by Susan Kaplan Carlton
A Light in the Darkness : Janusz Korczak, His Orphans, and the Holocaust by Albert Marrin

A Light in the Darkness : Janusz Korczak, his orphans, and the Holocaust by Albert Marrin
Call Number: YA B KOR-J (Young Adult Biography)
ISBN: 9781524701208
Publication Date: 2019-09-10
A Polish Jew on the eve of World War II, Janusz Korczak turned down opportunities for escape in order to stand by the children in his orphanage as they became confined to the Warsaw Ghetto. Dressing them in their Sabbath finest, he led their march to the trains and ultimately perished with his children in Treblinka. Marrin examines not just Korczak's life but his ideology of children: that children are valuable in and of themselves, as individuals. He contrasts this with Adolf Hitler's life and his ideology of children: that children are nothing more than tools of the state.

Sydney Taylor Book Award

Gold Medalists (Winners)

Book Rescuer by Sue Macy, author ; Stacy Innerst, illustrator

White Bird : a Wonder Story by R. J. Palacio

Someday We Will Fly by Rachel DeWoskin

Silver Medalists (Honor Books)

Gittel's Journey by Lesléa Newman, author ; Amy June Bates, illustrator

The Key from Spain : Flory Jagoda and Her Music by Debbie Levy, author ; Sonja Wimmer, illustrator

Anya and the Dragon by Sofiya Pasternack

Games of Deception : the True Story of the First U.S. Olympic Basketball Team at the 1936 Olympics in Hitler's Germany by Andrew Maraniss

Dissenter on the Bench : Ruth Bader Ginsburg's Life and Work by Victoria Ortiz

Sick Kids in Love by Hannah Moskowitz

Bronze Medalists (Notable Books)

Doctor Esperanto and the Language of Hope by Mara Rockliff ; illustrated by Zosia Dzierzawska

A Scarf for Keiko by Ann Malaspina ; illustrated by Merrilee Liddiard

Parrots, Pugs and Pixie Dust : a Book About Fashion Designer Judith Leiber

Masters of Silence by Kathy Kacer

A Boy is Not a Bird by Edeet Ravel

Rachel's Roses by Ferida Wolff

In the Neighborhood of True by Susan Kaplan Carlton

A Light in the Darkness : Janusz Korczak, His Orphans, and the Holocaust by Albert Marrin