All-of-a-Kind Family Downtown by Sydney Taylor

Taylor’s biographer, June Cummins, asserts that the books are some of the most widely read depictions of life of American Jewish children in the 20th century.

Follett Award, which it subsequently won in 1951, and which jumpstarted Taylor’s career as a celebrated children’s book author. She wrote the book to be able to pass down memories of her childhood to her daughter Jo, who was born in 1935.Īs the story goes, unbeknownst to Taylor, her husband submitted the manuscript of bedtime stories for the Charles W. Taylor, who was born in 1904 on the Lower East Side to Polish and German Jewish immigrant parents, wrote the books partly based on her own experience growing up in New York, and named the five sisters in the series after her own. “As a young Jewish girl growing up in America, I saw myself and my sister in these rich, detailed stories, and our Jewish heritage celebrated.”

“My grandfather and his family immigrated from Hungary to New York City in 1922, during the same era as the “All-of-a-Kind Family” books,” Halle Stanford, president of television for The Jim Henson Company, told Deadline. The series is being developed by The Jim Henson Company with Jordana Lewis Jaffe as the showrunner. The TV series, much like the book and its sequels (“More All-of-a-Kind Family,” “All-of-a-Kind Family Downtown,” “All-of-a-Kind Family Uptown” and “Ella of All-of-a-Kind Family” ) will follow the sisters’ (and their eventual brother’s) experiences growing up as Jewish immigrants in New York City circa 1912 - celebrating Jewish and American holidays, wrestling with chores, experiencing illness and enjoying candy. ( New York Jewish Week) – The Lower East Side’s most famous set of Jewish sisters - Ella, Henny, Sarah, Charlotte and Gertrude - may soon become TV stars: “All-of-a-Kind Family, ” Sydney Taylor’s award-winning 1951 book, is being developed into “a live-action one-hour drama series, ” Deadline reported this week.

All-of-a-Kind Family Downtown by Sydney Taylor