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When Jessie Came Across the Sea
When Jessie Came Across the Sea
 
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Product Code: 6494
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Description
 
This narrative of 13-year-old Jessie's journey from a poor village in Eastern Europe to New York City at the turn of the century affords readers a panoramic view of events and people. The author's exploration of a variety of emotions and feelings provides modern youngsters with a sense of connections with times long past. There is the familial devotion between Jessie and her grandmother, whom she has to leave behind. A shipboard friendship with Lou, a young shoemaker, helps Jessie survive the hardships and uncertainties of the ocean crossing. Her skill as a lacemaker, painstakingly learned from her grandmother, insures her success in the dressmaker's shop where she goes to work. Her romance with Lou is rekindled when they meet years later on a wintry day in Central Park. Jessie's reunion with her grandmother, whose ticket she has purchased with money saved during years of hard work, is the poignant conclusion to this tale. Lynch's luminous watercolor and gouache illustrations capture the characters' feelings, at the same time recording the storms at sea and teeming streets of the Lower East Side. The two young people's spirit of hope and optimism, created by the straightforward text, is enhanced by these pictures, as they provide a visual record of difficulties encountered by the scores of immigrants who reached these shores. This book will be particularly useful for units on immigration and family histories, used in conjunction with Allen Say's Grandfather's Journey (Houghton, 1993) or Jeanette Winter's Klara's New World (Knopf, 1992; o.p.).?Martha Rosen, Edgewood School, Scarsdale, NY -- Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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