All-of-a-Kind Family

 

The Saturday 9 meme asked for your favorite book from childhood, and one book immediately came to mind. 

Pre-World  War I, a Jewish immigrant family living on New York’s Lower East Side.  The family has five daughters (“all of a kind”), though later a little brother would join the family.  

The stories in the books were similar to the stories my parents told about their own childhoods — my father, born in 1927, grew up in a Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn.  My mother, born in 1932, grew up in the Bronx. And my father, the youngest child, had four older sisters…

There were actually a series of books, three published in the 1950’s and two published in the 1970’s.  As a child I read the first three books.  My parents bought the first two books, and I found the third at a school book fair.

The first book introduced us to the five little girls — Ella, Henny, Sarah, Charlotte and Gertie.   We followed the girls through their daily lives —school, the weekly trip to the library, housework.  There are special occasions, notably Jewish holidays.  Baby brother Charlie is born at the end of the first book. 

The second book is set in 1915, about two years later.  It features the continued adventures of the five girls and their brother.  

In book three, the family has relocated to the Bronx.  World War I features prominently in the story.

The last two books were published in the 70’s, after I’d outgrown children’s fiction, so I did not become aware of them until my own daughters were ready to read the books.

Downtown is set immediately after the events of the first book, when Charlie was a baby.  It was written in the 1950’s but the publisher turned it down as too grim — there’s a discussion of abject poverty and maternal death.  Finding this book was like rediscovering an old friend.

And the last book focuses of the eldest daughter.

What I did not know until quite recently is that Sydney Taylor was born Sarah Brenner.  She had four sisters — Ella, Henny, Charlotte and Gertie.  She had three younger brothers.  In 1916 the family moved from the Lower East Side to the Bronx.  I guess it’s good to write what you know about.

All five books are currently on my Kindle.  (I wonder what book-loving Sarah would think of that device), and I am once again visiting old friends.