The Castle on Hester Street

Rating:
Summary: A clever way to introduce the immigrant experience.
Review: A grandfather tells his grandaughter tall tales about each stage in his immigration to the U.S. and his early life in New York. Then the grandmother deflates each tale and explains how things really were back then. I find this two-step process to be a clever way to teach children about the experience which their grandparents went through, first hooking them with a silly story, and then hitting them with the facts. The book is especially useful for reading aloud to children whose grandparents can no longer tell the story themselves, or for inspiring children to ask their grandparents about their experience. This is a rather matter-of-fact review, so I should add that my children and I find this book funny and endearing, and have read it together many times.

Rating:
Summary: Enough is enough
Review: It's sad that great children's books go out of print of so often.

This one is about a grandfather's tall tales. He joshed his granddaughter Julie about Hershel the famous astronomer, who discovered the moon is a matzah ball. And Bessie, who used her exceedingly long braids as jumping rope.

And Moishe, the goat from his village in Russia, who pulled his wagon all the way to America--9,092 miles, singing a certain famous song all the way.

But grandpa's best tale was about his real trip on packed steamer to America, and meeting Julie's grandmother Rose.

Of course, he couldn't keep himself from embellishing the story for long, and soon wove in nonsense about a castle on Hester Street, so tall that pigeons couldn't fly to the roof and had to be carried by ladder. And since he was a button peddler, he told Julie of buttons made from diamonds and gold, buttons big as saucers, and buttons used as sleds.

Our copy was a hand-me-down from family, and since there is little chance of finding another, there is no chance we'll ever part with it. Alyssa A. Lappen