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3.79 AVERAGE
3.79 AVERAGE
We listened to an audiobook and while the story was good, sometimes the voice of the narrator was annoying. Overall though an interesting story to listen to; my children, especially my youngest enjoyed it.
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
3.5 stars
Letters from Rifka is the story of a Russian, Jewish girl, Rifka, whose family is forced to immigrate from Russia to the United States when her parents decide that her brothers will not join the Russian Army. Their immigration story is somewhat nontraditional in that they already have family members in the US who have sent them money to be able to afford the journey. In another twist, Rifka finds herself ill with ringworm and cannot join her family on their voyage. She must spend months in Belgium recovering and then make the long ocean crossing alone.
My main issue with the story is that I don't think the epistolatory style works for this book. To fill readers in on the political and social climate of Russia, Rifka has to do a lot of explaining that would not actually take place in a letter to her cousin.
I do think Letters from Rifka tells a unique immigration story, but middle-grade readers could handle a little more background on the reality of life for Jews in Russia during the pogroms and also have been better served by having a harder look at what life was like for these immigrants when they reached America.
Letters from Rifka is the story of a Russian, Jewish girl, Rifka, whose family is forced to immigrate from Russia to the United States when her parents decide that her brothers will not join the Russian Army. Their immigration story is somewhat nontraditional in that they already have family members in the US who have sent them money to be able to afford the journey. In another twist, Rifka finds herself ill with ringworm and cannot join her family on their voyage. She must spend months in Belgium recovering and then make the long ocean crossing alone.
My main issue with the story is that I don't think the epistolatory style works for this book. To fill readers in on the political and social climate of Russia, Rifka has to do a lot of explaining that would not actually take place in a letter to her cousin.
I do think Letters from Rifka tells a unique immigration story, but middle-grade readers could handle a little more background on the reality of life for Jews in Russia during the pogroms and also have been better served by having a harder look at what life was like for these immigrants when they reached America.
Cool book from a view that not many have heard from. Love this!
A very interesting MG story about a Russian Jewish girl who gets separated from her family when they emigrate to America in 1919-1920. For some reason I was afraid the story wouldn't have a happy ending, but I was pleasantly surprised and glad for Rifka, after all that she endured alone.
I love historical fiction and this book is a great example of the genre. In just 150 pages, we travel with Rifka from Burdichev, to Poland, to Belgium and finally to Ellis Island as her Jewish family attempts to escape from persecution in Russia in 1919. If you like this book, check out Mission Four from the online historical fiction game Mission US: City of Immigrants.
This is the book I will use for my next unit in ELA and Social Studies. I picked it for the Social Studies unit on Industrialization, Urbanization, Immigration, and Progressivism. It fits best with the immigration part of that, obviously. Having finished it now, I am very glad that I chose it, for a number of reasons.
The book does a great job of encapsulating all of the tragedies and triumphs of the story of immigrants to America, in particular Jewish immigrants. The perseverance and intelligence of immigrants shines through in this book, which also makes it fit the ELA unit on human intelligence quite well. I think my students will also like it because it relatively short and simple (that's why it only gets 4 stars), although it never shies away from the truths of history.
This is the story of a Jewish family from Berdychiv, in what today is Ukraine, and their flight to America because of an attempt to avoid conscription into the Soviet Army for several of the brothers of the family. It is based on the true story of the author's great-aunt.
I think it will open the door for a lot of learning opportunities for my students. For sure, it will connect to poetry, that I need to do more to teach them. We will study Pushkin as well as the famous Emma Lazarus poem on the Statue of Liberty. Beyond that, there is so much I will need to teach them to help them understand this book, and this will also help set the stage for our study of World War II later. Beyond the easy ones like Ellis Island, there is a lot of complex European and Jewish history, some of which I haven't studied myself since college and graduate school. I will need to cover WWI (briefly, because we will cover it in more depth in a later unit), the Russian Revolution, Anti-Semitism (they have already learned some of this, but not enough), Yiddish, pogroms, Hasidic Judaism, Ashkenazi Jews, the Pale of Settlement, and the changing geographic borders of Eastern Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries. Fun for me! Although, perhaps not quite so much fun for them.
I am enjoying this project of creating an "American Studies" class, and my upcoming review of Fahrenheit 451 will get more into that.
The book does a great job of encapsulating all of the tragedies and triumphs of the story of immigrants to America, in particular Jewish immigrants. The perseverance and intelligence of immigrants shines through in this book, which also makes it fit the ELA unit on human intelligence quite well. I think my students will also like it because it relatively short and simple (that's why it only gets 4 stars), although it never shies away from the truths of history.
This is the story of a Jewish family from Berdychiv, in what today is Ukraine, and their flight to America because of an attempt to avoid conscription into the Soviet Army for several of the brothers of the family. It is based on the true story of the author's great-aunt.
I think it will open the door for a lot of learning opportunities for my students. For sure, it will connect to poetry, that I need to do more to teach them. We will study Pushkin as well as the famous Emma Lazarus poem on the Statue of Liberty. Beyond that, there is so much I will need to teach them to help them understand this book, and this will also help set the stage for our study of World War II later. Beyond the easy ones like Ellis Island, there is a lot of complex European and Jewish history, some of which I haven't studied myself since college and graduate school. I will need to cover WWI (briefly, because we will cover it in more depth in a later unit), the Russian Revolution, Anti-Semitism (they have already learned some of this, but not enough), Yiddish, pogroms, Hasidic Judaism, Ashkenazi Jews, the Pale of Settlement, and the changing geographic borders of Eastern Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries. Fun for me! Although, perhaps not quite so much fun for them.
I am enjoying this project of creating an "American Studies" class, and my upcoming review of Fahrenheit 451 will get more into that.
A quick read that feels like a conversation. What I enjoyed most was the narrative of Rifka's experiences on Ellis Island - her commentary on what it means to be an immigrant and about belonging was striking and thought provoking.
I read this last weekend and really enjoyed it. I'll keep it for our family library as I'm sure some of the kids will want to read it too.
emotional
sad
medium-paced