May/June 1999 issue

Book Review

by Talia Barash, age 10,
Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts

Click on the cover to order this book

Letters from Rifka by Karen Hesse; Henry Holt and Company: New York, 1992; $15.95

In the book I just read called Letters From Rifka, the main character Rifka is separated from her parents. I have been separated from my parents too. Though I was younger and separated for a shorter time, I still felt many of the things that she felt.

Rifka had to go away from her parents because she had a disease. Her family was moving to America from Russia to find a better life, but she was not allowed to board the ship. So she had to stay in Antwerp, Belgium, where she would get treatment for her disease. The disease was ringworm. My parents had to go to Turkey for two weeks. They were on a vacation by themselves. My brother and I stayed, not because we had a disease, but because we had to go to school.

When Rifka’s parents said good-bye to her she did not totally understand what was going on. When she realized, she was wide-eyed with fear. For many days she sat and just grieved. Soon, though, she started looking around and took advantage of her parents not being there, and ate lots of sweets.

As my brother and I bid my parents farewell at the door, we got very teary-eyed and cried a lot. But, just like Rifka, we found that our baby-sitter really was a lot of fun. Soon Rifka’s worries and mine were put to an end. We were having fun and were both determined that everything would be all right. My parents would come home safely and Rifka would meet her parents in America soon.

Rifka and I have one other similarity. We are both Jewish. Where Rifka used to live, in Berdichev, Russia, Jews were unwanted. They could own very little, and were not given privileges. Where Rifka lived it was a privilege to live.

In America, it was said that people were not discriminated against by what they believed in or the color of their skin. That is why Rifka and her family were immigrating to America. My great-grandparents immigrated to America from Russia. I feel safe living here. No one gets mad at me for being Jewish and I am treated the same as everyone else.

I really recommend this book because it gives you a great sense of how the Jews were treated in the early 1920s. It is very emotional and has a lot of facts. I hope you like this book too!