In this epistolary novel about family, migration and loss, a 12-year-old Jewish girl named Rifka documents her family’s escape from Russia in 1919 and their journey to the USA: how Rifka distracted guards by telling them stories, how she fell sick and needed to be treated in Belgium before they could go on and how their ship is stopped by a storm in the middle of the Atlantic ocean.

This text might serve as a starting point for interdiciplinary teaching with the subjects of History and Politics (e.g. Russian Revolution, migration, American Dream).

Novel · United States · 1992