The Cultural Doings and Undoings of the Sydney Taylor Book Award

Abstract

The children’s book award is an ideological vehicle that communicates both implicit and explicit values to the wider world. For half a century, the Sydney Taylor Book Award has invoked criteria of literary excellence and authentic portrayals of Jewish experiences and the implicit cultural values that underpin them in its mission to recognize, celebrate, and perpetuate quality Jewish children’s literature. The award upholds and subverts cultural ideas of childhood, literary excellence, and Jewish authenticity in order to resist systems of power and dominant cultural narratives that seek to erase or flatten Jewish representation.