Summer Reading

It has been a while since I blogged about books. This school year has flown by and I can't believe I am already embarking upon summer reading! In my search for great summer reads, I have come across books that I'd enjoyed in the past. Letters From Rifka by Karen Hesse is a book that I could read several times and still gain new insight with each read.

Karen Hesse's novel, Letters From Rifka,  is a children's historical novel  published by Holt in 1992. It features a Jewish family's emigration from Russia in 1919, to Belgium and ultimately to the U.S., from the perspective of daughter Rifka, based on the personal account by Hesse's great-aunt Lucille Avrutin. Hesse and Letters From Rifka  won the 2012 Phoenix Award from the Children's Literature Association, recognizing the best children's book published twenty years earlier that did not win a major award. In addition, Letters From Rifka won the 1993 National Jewish Book Award in the category of Children's Literature.The protagonist's name, Rifka, is the East European Jewish version of Rebecca. This book works nicely into a study of immigration, and the fear many families faced as they came to America in search of a better life. Rifka's family fled from their homeland of Russia during the Russian Civil War. to avoid persecution. She tells her story in a series of letters to a cousin who remains behind in Russia, written in the blank spaces of an edition of Pushkin's poetry. Rifka, her parents, and her brothers Nathan and Saul, escape Russia, hoping to join the three older sons who have been living in America for years. Along the way, they face cruel officials, typhus, hunger, theft, ringworm, and a separation that threatens to keep Rifka from ever rejoining her family. She is constantly reminded she must be clever and brave, but her true salvation can only come when she learns compassion. While she is stranded at Ellis Island, she finds she has a talent for nursing and for literature. I highly recommend this book to children in the intermediate/middle school grades, as well as adults.

What will you be reading this summer?