Sydney Taylor

Who Was Sydney Taylor?

Sydney Taylor was an American author, actress, and dancer who left a permanent mark on children’s literature. She was born Sarah Brenner on October 30, 1904, in New York City. She died on February 12, 1978.

Before she ever picked up a pen to write for children, she performed on stage and danced professionally. However, it is her writing that the world remembers best.

She is best known for the All-of-a-Kind Family series. These five books depicted Jewish-American life in early 20th-century New York City with warmth, specificity, and deep humanity. Furthermore, they were the first juvenile novels published by a mainstream publisher to feature Jewish children as central characters.

Therefore, Sydney Taylor did not simply write beloved stories. She changed what children’s literature could look like — and who it could be for.

Early Life: From the Lower East Side to a New Name

A Jewish Immigrant Family in New York City

Sydney Taylor was born Sarah Brenner to German-Jewish immigrant parents on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Her family was observant but not Orthodox in their Jewish practice. Taylor and her siblings attended public school.

The family lived in poverty, but they held deep respect and appreciation for the country that had given them a new life. This childhood — full of sisters, Shabbat rituals, pushcart markets, and neighborhood characters — would become the heartbeat of her most famous books.

The four other sisters’ names were the same in the books as in their real lives; only the real-life Sarah changed her name to the boyish Sydney while she was in high school. Correspondence saved by Taylor indicates that she requested to be called Sydney, or Sid, in high school.

Moving Uptown

The Brenner family moved from the Lower East Side to the Bronx in 1916, where Taylor attended Morris High School. This move uptown reflected the aspirations of many immigrant families who were building new lives in America. However, Taylor never forgot the streets, smells, and stories of the Lower East Side. Decades later, those memories would become literature.

Before the Books: A Life in the Performing Arts

Marriage and the Stage

In 1925, Sydney married Ralph Taylor, a pharmacist and businessman. She became first an actor with the Lenox Hill Players in New York City from 1927 to 1929, then a professional dancer with the Martha Graham Dance Company during the early 1930s.

Taylor and her husband, Ralph Schneider, joined the Lenox Hill Players, an experimental theater troupe, from 1927 to 1929. The theater gave her a creative outlet and a community.

Dancing With Martha Graham

After the stage, Taylor moved to dance. Taylor then studied under Martha Graham for several years, appearing several times in Graham’s dances, Heretic and Primitive Mysteries. From 1930 till 1935, she performed as a professional dancer in Martha Graham’s first dance troupe.

This period of her life was demanding. It was also formative. The discipline, storytelling instinct, and physical expressiveness she developed as a performer would later shape the vivid, character-driven world of the All-of-a-Kind Family series.

From Performer to Mother — and Storyteller

After dancing with the Martha Graham Dance Company, Taylor took time off to have her one and only child, a daughter. As her daughter Joanne grew up, Taylor would tell her stories about her own childhood on the Lower East Side. She was flooded with nostalgia — for the sisters, the holidays, the neighbors, the rhythm of Jewish life in an immigrant neighborhood.

Because of her daughter’s inquiries, Taylor wrote down her memories and then tucked them away in a drawer. She had not written them for publication. She had written them for love.

The All-of-a-Kind Family Series: How It Came to Be

A Husband’s Surprise Submission

The story of how All-of-a-Kind Family reached the world is itself a wonderful story.

It was for Taylor’s husband, Ralph, to unearth the manuscript when he heard about the Charles W. Follett Award for writing. Unknown to his wife, he submitted All-of-a-Kind Family, which was published in 1951, received the award, and launched Sydney Taylor’s career as a writer of children’s fiction.

According to at least one of Sydney’s accounts of how she became an author, it was Ralph who sent her private manuscript of family stories to Follett Publishing Company, where it was accepted and granted an award.

Taylor was surprised. Then she was nervous. Then she revised. And then — the book appeared in the world.

A Landmark in Children’s Literature

Although All-of-a-Kind Family was one of the first children’s books specifically about Jewish children, initial marketing of the book avoided using the word “Jewish,” as did the book reviews after publication. This was not an accident. In 1951, books with Jewish characters and themes were rare in mainstream publishing unless they were explicitly religious texts.

Despite this hesitant reception, readers embraced the book immediately. Sydney Taylor’s books were the first to reach a large, mainstream audience with a depiction of American Jewish children in realistic situations.

The Five Books of the Series

Readers wanted more after the success of the first book. Taylor delivered. The complete All-of-a-Kind Family series comprises five novels:

Year	Title
1951	All-of-a-Kind Family
1954	More All-of-a-Kind Family
1958	All-of-a-Kind Family Uptown
1972	All-of-a-Kind Family Downtown
1978	Ella of All-of-a-Kind Family

Chronologically, All-of-a-Kind Family Downtown takes place third in the series but was published fourth. The Downtown book introduced more unpleasant aspects of Lower East Side life, such as poverty, disease, and hunger, to which Taylor’s editor objected in a book for children. All-of-a-Kind Family Downtown would not be published until 1972, after Taylor’s original editor at Wilcox & Follett retired.

The Heart of the Stories

The five sisters — Ella, Henny, Sarah, Charlotte, and Gertie — are named for Taylor’s own sisters. The values of family love, charity, wisdom, compassion, and social justice that define her All-of-a-Kind Family owe their particular flavor to Jewish culture.

Together, these books offered generations of readers — Jewish and non-Jewish alike — a vivid, tender portrait of immigrant life in America. They showed that Jewish stories were universal stories.

Awards and Recognition

Sydney Taylor’s work earned significant recognition during her lifetime and beyond.

Her first book won the Charles W. Follett Award in children’s literature. The book also won the 1952 Jewish Book Council Award.

Additionally, she received the National Jewish Book Award for All-of-a-Kind Family in 1952. These honors confirmed what readers already knew: this was important, lasting work.

Legacy: The Sydney Taylor Book Award

The Award’s Origins

The award was renamed “the Sydney Taylor Book Award” in 1978 after the death of Sydney Taylor, author of the All-of-a-Kind Family series. Ralph established the Sydney Taylor Book Award in his wife’s memory.

The award itself had a longer history. Originally, it was known as the Shirley Kravitz Children’s Book Award and was later renamed in honor of Sydney Taylor in 1978. It was established by the Association of Jewish Libraries in 1968.

What the Award Does

The Sydney Taylor Book Award is presented annually to outstanding books for children and teens that authentically portray the Jewish experience. Presented by the Association of Jewish Libraries since 1968, the award encourages the publication and widespread use of quality Judaic literature.

In 1988, the Sydney Taylor Book Award Committee began selecting Honor Books as well as winning titles. Today, awards are presented across three age categories. There is also a separate Sydney Taylor Manuscript Award, first given in 1985, which supports unpublished writers working in Jewish children’s literature.

A Lasting Cultural Influence

Taylor was deeply influential in the development of national Jewish identity. Her biography conveys the vital importance of children’s books in the transmission of Jewish culture and the preservation of ethnic heritage.

Sydney Taylor died of cancer on February 12, 1978. The final All-of-a-Kind Family book was published posthumously later that year. It received the first annual Sydney Taylor Body-of-Work Award, established by the Association of Jewish Libraries in 1979.

In 2014, the All-of-a-Kind Family series was re-released for a new generation of readers. The books remain in print and in classrooms today.