A Papa Like Everyone Else

The experience of two young jewish girls and their mother, living on a farm in the Czechoslovak Republic after World War I, while waiting for their father to send them money to join him in America.

A warm and charming family story...one can imagine this this story ends where All-of-a-Kind Family begins.--School Library Journal

Teacher Questions & Answers for A Papa Like Everyone Else by Sydney Taylor: Receive reading comprehension questions for each chapter of the story. Answers are provided in this copy.

The adventures of five sisters growing up in a Jewish family in New York in the early twentieth century.

I had every reason to hate her, my forbidden sister. She was like someone who had died but wouldn’t stay buried. . . . Emmie Wilcox was only six when her older sister, Roxy, was thrown out of their New York City apartment. Their stern father’s military-style rules left no room for rebellion, and Roxy was as defiant as Emmie—now an outstanding student at a private school—is compliant: a perfect daughter, un fille parfaite, as her Parisian-born mother lovingly calls her. Two sisters, total opposites—yet Emmie is secretly obsessed with the mystery surrounding Roxy: What had she done? Where is she now? And is there a hidden side to Emmie that resembles Roxy’s spiteful nature? Knowing only that Roxy is a highly paid escort to the city’s wealthiest men, Emmie goes behind her father’s back to track down the sister she fears, despises, and inexplicably clings to . . . and whose influence might run deeper than Emmie ever imagined.

In the sixth book of the Chronicles of Mattias Series, Mattias Denson, King of the Seven Realms, is once again confronted with new characters and adversaries looking to attack his kingdoms, this time through new unconquered territory. New figures emerge as the invaders are unmasked; the invaders have no love for the colonists along the coast of the eastern Mar, or for the rule of law under the Covenant. They are slavers and ruthless conquerors looking for gold and Lesti inventory. Pagan, immortal and Lesti leaders send representatives to Mattias Denson, who now occupies New Nimbus, once the domain of Lord Seth and his son Prince Xerxes. They have left the Kir Oasis and have traveled west in search of Old Nimbus, the kingdom in the clouds. Mattias is soon inundated with new people and their stories of who they are, what they want, and what they want from him. But are they true to anything beyond themselves, and can these leaders be trusted? Problems develop in the far west as well as the far east; his family and his armies are fragmented and unsteady. Alana Q introduces new peoples and characters to the mythology and lore of the Chronicles series which began with The King of the Northern Fells. As the world of Mattias Denson and his wives grows and matures, so too does Mattias as he faces his world burdened by the tasks given him by the gods and challenged by his military and family. New challenges are as frequent as are the betrayals and new characters who pose them. Two armies approach. What will happen to the Seven Realms when the tsunami of evil finally hits?

The untold life story of All-of-a-Kind Family author Sydney Taylor, highlighting her dramatic influence on American children’s literature This is the first and only biography of Sydney Taylor (1904–1978), author of the award-winning All-of-a-Kind Family series of books, the first juvenile novels published by a mainstream publisher to feature Jewish children characters. The family—based on Taylor’s own as a child—includes five sisters, each two years apart, dressed alike by their fastidious immigrant mother so they all look the same: all-of-a-kind. The four other sisters’ names were the same in the books as in their real lives; only the real-life Sarah changed hers to the boyish Sydney while she was in high school. Cummins elucidates the deep connections between the progressive Taylor’s books and American Jewish experiences, arguing that Taylor was deeply influential in the development of national Jewish identity. This biography conveys the vital importance of children’s books in the transmission of Jewish culture and the preservation of ethnic heritage.