The Sydney Taylor Book Award at Fifty: Trends in Canonized Jewish Children’s Literature (1968–2020)

Abstract

The Sydney Taylor Book Award, sponsored by the Association of Jewish Libraries since 1968, is the only book award for children’s literature that represents the Jewish experience. The award’s fiftieth anniversary, celebrated in 2018, provided an opportunity to conduct a content analysis study of 102 books and summarize thematic and publishing trends across award categories and time periods. The data points collected were based on bibliographic records and, to smaller extent, on coded Holocaust-related themes. Conclusions refer to Jewish education in the United States and concepts of gender, identity, history, and Holocaust studies that have shaped it through children’s literature for over fifty years.