Adrienne Raphel

Why I Have ‘All-of-a-Kind’ Déjà Vu

In 1951, Follett published Sydney Taylor’s “All-of-a-Kind Family,” the first children’s book for a mass audience that featured American Jews. It’s been in print ever since. The Jewish tenements on the Lower East Side at the turn of the century glow with nostalgia; think Proust’s madeleine as a challah. Taylor’s editor worried that readers wouldn’t…