All Of A Kind Family, Tenement Museum, & Combining Reading and Museum Trips

Just one elementary school trip to the Museum of the City of New York, and I had enough material for years of fantasy. I imagined myself inside the dioramas of times past and enacted scenes in my head to put myself to sleep at night. The “All of A Kind Family” books by Sidney Taylor, which follow a large immigrant Jewish family living in New York City’s Lower East Side in the early years of the twentieth century, also, enchanted me. The first book was written shortly after WWII. The books do not have the authentic dialect and family dynamics that modern readers might expect. But children’s books about the Jewish experience were rare at that time, and for me, there was enough detail to open the door into their world and tap my family’s roots. I drew comfort in the small dramas that the children were able to navigate with the help of their parents. They were poor, but had traditions that enriched them. Each of the characters were presented with strengthens and weaknesses, and it wasn’t lost on me that these were not perfect girls. I fell inside the stories with rapt enthusiasm. I couldn’t wait to introduce the books to Sylvia.

I held on to my hard cover copies all the way to college, but they were lost when my parent’s house burned down. I expected they might be hard to find – seemingly so old-fashioned. The first one was easy– Borders had it. The others were located on line. I read some of the very positive review on Amazon, and interestingly, someone recommended them for girls who like historical fiction, like the American Girl series. Someone else pointed out that with these books, you don’t have to buy a doll!

While my husband has been reading books with complex narratives to Sylvia since she was a toddler, these kinds of books are perfect mother/daughter reading. Comforting and warm. We read them before going to sleep in our twin beds on the top floor of the B&B Belgravia in London, or on a night when Jeremy is playing viola at an open mike in Maplewood. Sometimes Sylvia rereads a chapter on her own and sometimes she reads ahead so she knows what happens. There’s comfort in familiarity.

History is not a big part of the second grade curriculum. There are some ‘fun facts’ like the names of the continents, how to read simple maps, a few American history highlights. Biographies, if you’re at a certain reading level, can be taken home from the classroom library. As my daughter tells me, ‘if you’re on the sunshine level, you can’t read chapter books,’ and also, if you’re in first grade. So last year, in her multi-age class, she couldn’t read them. This year, she can, but there’s no discussion and no context provided. So building an understanding of history has to be provided at home. Immigration is something she and I have in common, something that is part of our identities.

I knew from looking at the Tenement Museum website that "All of a Kind Family" was in their bookstore - a quick connection to make with Sylvia as we made the twists and turns downtown on our drive to the museum. Don’t look for a ‘museum.’ You buy your tickets for the hour long tour in the gift shop and then meet your guide a few doors down, in front of the tenement. The guide asked our group if anyone had connections to the Lower East Side. I was expecting at least some of the visitors to feel, even a metaphoric connection with the immigrant experience. I was wrong. European tourists shook their heads. Students from Alabama and Minnesota said ‘no’ in the way that indicated nothing could be further from their reality. Actually, I was the only one who said yes, my grandparents were among the thousands and thousands of immigrants who packed into this part of town 100 years ago.

I don’t want to reveal the surprises of the tour and the layers of fascinating New York City architectural and historical detail that were revealed. If it sounds like being on an archeological dig, it was. You can view a virtual audio tour on-line, although missing will be the wonderful stories our guide, who grew up on the LES, added.

Take a virtual tour of the apartment.

This morning, as we read, “All of A Kind Family Downtown,” the details were fleshed out so much more having stood inside a tenement apartment from the turn of the century yesterday. It gave a richness to stepping in of the shoes of the characters, and by feeling empathy with their experience, widened our own.

Recommended Reading on the Immigrant Experience:

"All of a Kind Family," "More All of a Kind Family," "All of a Kind Family Uptown," "All of a Kind Family Downtown," by Sidney Taylor

"Life on the Lower East Side" by Jennifer Blizin Gillis, includes a recipe for latkes.

"When Jessie Came Across the Sea" by Amy Hest , illustrated by P.J. Lynch