Glaser, Linda.

BRIDGE TO AMERICA

New York : Houghton Mifflin, 2005

IL 5-8, RL 4.7

ISBN 0618563016

(2 booktalks)

In 1921, the money finally arrives.  Fivel's father had emigrated from Russia to find a new life for his family in America.  He had promised to send money back so that the rest of the family could join him but it has taken a while to do.  While waiting, Fivel has endured poverty, hunger and the fear of the Russian government pogroms.  But now the family is on the way to America.  As he steps off the boat at Ellis Island, Fivel dreams of how great life will be in the new country.  But what he finds may be different from what he dreams.

Booktalk #2

His father promised they would all be together in America. But can they survive the Cossack pogroms in their small Polish village while waiting for the money to arrive?  Finally they are on their way.  But trying to make a new life in America as an immigrant was more difficult than Fivel had imagined. The struggle to become an American was definitely worth it.  (Jean B. Bellavance for Pennsylvania Young Reader's Choice Awards, 2007-2008)