Sydney Taylor

Sydney Taylor (October 30, 1904 – February 12, 1978) was an American writer, known for her series of children's books about a Jewish-American family in New York during the early 20th century. Her first book won the Charles W. Follett Award in children's literature.

She was born Sarah Brenner on October 30, 1904, in New York City to Cecilia (née Marowitz) and Morris Brenner, Jewish immigrants from Germany.  Her parents and eldest sister Ella had emigrated in 1901 to the United States and settled in the Lower East Side of Manhattan.  Taylor was the third of the five daughters who would become characters in her later books: Ella, Henrietta, Sarah, Charlotte, and Gertrude. She had two younger brothers. German was the first language of the Brenner children, although they spoke English among themselves and outside of the home.

Her stories based on life in her large, Jewish family are chronicled in a set of five books known as the All-of-a-Kind Family series. "During the second half of the twentieth century [the books in the series] were the most widely known books about American Jewish children.