Watch The Stars Come Out

The two "I" narrators confuse me. I don't know how much the story means without context. I do like the details in some of the pictures.

Summary:
The story begins as the ship approaches the Statue of Liberty. After a tough journey, the family reaches NYC, and works its way toward their new home, a German-Jewish neighborhood on Hester Street. The story is told from the grandmother who made the trip as a little girl, to a young girl who looks much like her. The memories help the little girl feel connected to her grandmother, and to feel a little closer to an experience her family knew. She sees the stars, just as her grandmother saw the stars, and realizes life is good.
Personal Reaction:
I enjoyed this book, because I can remember my great grandmother telling me a story that her grandmother told her about how she made the trip by boat to America. I wish I could remember the show more story well enough to recite it though!
Classroom extension:
1. Have the class tell a story as if they were immigrants traveling to America
2. If an older class, have them do some genealogy to trace back where they came from. show less

This story is gives us what it was like for immigrants another country around the turn of the century. It starts out though with a grandma telling her grandchild about a story that her mom used to tell her. It really gives children a feel for what things were like for these children a long time ago, you feel like you are scared and lonely with the character.

I would use this book as an interactive read aloud for 4th grade students. I would use this in fourth grade because the story allows them to determine the theme of the story from the details in the text. This would show that they understand the story and what it was like to be an immigrant. I would also have the class tell a story as if they were immigrants traveling to America, which would help teach students to describe in depth the character, which would be them, the setting, and the event using details from the text to prompt their journey. Another way I could use this book would be to compare and contrast the grandmothers and granddaughters point of view. They could compare and contrast what the grandma went through at that age, show more and what the granddaughter has currently experienced. show less

This is a fictional story that has many real facts about how things were when people were immigrating to America. The illustrations of this book are done in colored pencils. The conent of the story is about a grandma telling her grand-daughter the story of her own mother's journey to America. It goes back in time to when the mother was young and she and her brother were traveling to America to join her mother and her father. It took them 23 days to cross the ocean. When the reached America, they were met by their parents and older sister. They explored their new home and fell fast asleep and happy. The reading level of this book is from second to fourth grade. Some curricular connections could be immigration, historical fiction, and show more stories told by grandmothers. show less

I would use this as an interactive read aloud for fourth grade because they will be learning about immigration in social studies. We could use the text to learn about how immigrants came to America from other countries and how the traveled and what happened when they got here. The students could use key details from the text to describe certain events that happened during the story and to describe the character. They could also look for peoples motive in wanting to come to America instead of staying in the country they were from.

Grandmom tells about her mama's journey to America by boat.