Linda Heller

Castle on Hester Street is a warm and whimsical tale about immigration. Having left Russia for America, Julie’s Jewish grandparents describe two different journeys. While her Grandpa illustrates wondrous tales of castles and flying gold wagons, her grandma corrects his embellished truths by shining a light on what their journey was truly like.
Heller does a brilliant job of highlighting the complex issues surrounding immigration. Grandpa’s imaginative and fanciful stories capture the show more hope and excitement of joining a new land; while grandma’s story gently depicts the hardships immigrants endured. The historical touches sprinkled with affectionate storytelling complement each other to tell a fun, yet informative tale. show less

This was a very fun book. It was about a grandfather talking to his granddaughter about how they came to America to start a better life with themselves. He tries to make things interesting, but her grandmother butts in everytime that he starts to exagirate. It would be an interesting book for children learning about immigration in the late 1800s or early 1900s, it is fun as a book about storytelling and tall tales, and it illustrates the importance of family ties and passing on stories about show more the family to younger generations. show less

Cute little children's book where HaShem asks various critters if they were the best they could be. Of course, if you didn't see the cover flap and you were a Gentile, you would not know this was about Rosh Hashanah!

On the first page, the little girl, Julie, seems to be the protagonist. As the story goes on, we learn that the Grandparents are in fact the main characters as they tell their story about immigration. The Grandpa tells these wild, extremely fantasized stories and the grandmother consistently corrects him with the truth. I think this book shared a handful of valuable things. The story provides children with information about immigration in earlier times and possibly how their own family show more member got to America. This could also be used to show children that you can always look at things differently, there's always various perspectives on things. Though the grandfather was aware of the saddening truth, he continued to have a good attitude and make the best of his story. show less