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Summary: Remarkably written...Intriguing and page turning!
Review: Although typically I do not like books set in earlier times, I fell for this one. It focuses on a female immigrant and her struggles of living in poverty in America. With a stronghead father, who insists a woman has no being without a man, Sara, the main character, triumphantly and repeatedly shows him what a girl is truly made of. For all woman-power females out there, this is a wonderful read. Discriptive wording and interesting dialogue, you will turn page after page as Sara touches your heart.
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Summary: Bread Givers is a masterwork.
Review: Anzia Yezierska touches the core of the immigrant experience with this novel. Through the eyes of Sara Smolinsky, we learn to view the world for its possibilities, not its pitfalls. The novel is a series of contrasts. While Yezierska does not lead us to judge, Reb Smolinsky, Masha the "empty-headed", and several of the secondary characters, evoke very strong sentiments in the reader. While we empathize with the family's plight, and support the independence of "blood and iron" Sara, we cannot help but feel for the comparatively weak characters. This novel is a very quick and easy read. Highly recommended.
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Summary: This is a book that should not be forgotten.
Review: Bread Givers allowed me to see what my relatives went through when they came to this country from Italy. Although they were not Jewish, the experience of the Smolinsky family is one that many can relate to. Not only did I learn what my ancestors experienced--I lived it. This is a book that should not be forgotten. To do so, would be a disservice to those who struggled to make it in the land of opportunity.
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Summary: A story that is the essence of immigrant & American life.
Review: Bread Givers is a simply written story, but it captures in depth what is was to be an immigrant in the early 1900's. Sara was an example to us all to be our own person and live our own lives. Sara displayed Yezierska's idea that it is not possible for an immigrant to become one hundred percent American. It would be impossible to completely wipe out one's past. Different backgrounds are what make the United States such a unique country. Immigrants coming to the United States should not be forced to forget or abolish their own heritage, but they should adjust to the new life that they have gained, just as Sara Smolinsky did willingly, and her father, Reb Smolinsky, was forced to do in the end.
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Summary: Yezierska captures the struggle of an immigrant woman.
Review: Bread Givers is an essential book for any student of 20th C American Literature. Yezierska poignantly captures the multitude of feelings an obstacles any immigrant must face in the struggle to find where he/she fits in: the old world or the new. The first time I read Bread Givers, there were many nights I lied in bed awake at night, angry at the father for being so dominearing, angry at the daughters for being submissive. But through all the struggle betwixt in the pages, Bread Givers is a story of hope, of love, and of triumphance. You will not be dissapointed.
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Summary: An Inspiring Book, but a Feminists Nightmare
Review: Even though this book is probably set anywhere from the late 1890's to early 1920's--as the book was first published in 1925--as a woman it is hard not to be totally offended by Reb. Smolinsky's attitudes towards women. He says: "A woman without a man is less than nothing. A woman without a man can never enter Heaven." As a Christian, I obviously find this belief to be totally untrue, but it is the statement that a woman is nothing without a man that just makes me wish that Reb. Smolinsky was standing in front of me so I could strangle him.Even though I hated the father more than words can say, I still gave this book five stars because it is so unbelievably inspiring. Sara Smolinsky does not allow her father to completely dominate her. She does not allow him to marry her off to a man that she does not love--like he did her three older sisters. She leaves home around the age of seventeen and works in a laundry store all day and takes night classes at night for years so that she can go to college. She has to make so many sacrifices along the way, but she never gives up on her dream of graduating from college and becoming a teacher. The fact that she was able to work her way out of poverty, get an education, and obtain her dream of becoming a teacher was just so inspirational. I read this book for a literature class on American Immigrants, and I am so thankful that teacher assigned the book because I got a lot out of it. Watching Sara's transformation in this book from an uneducated and emotionally uncontrolled woman into a cool and controlled professional who could succeed in America, in a way her father never could, was a kind of growing experience for me, as well. Also, as I neared the end of the book, I kind of began to see the father in a different light. Yes he was a horrible tyrant to the women in his family, but he was also like a fish out of water flopping around helplessly. He had been uprooted from his home in Poland and replanted in America where nothing was like it was for him back in the Old World. Therefore, there are times when Reb. Smolinsky really comes off as this just completely pathetic character, and I almost would have felt sorry for him if he had not put all the blame for his failures on his wife and daughters--and made their lives even more miserable because of his failures.
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Summary: BEST BOOK IN THE WORLD!!! BYE IT NOW!
Review: Hi, I am only 12 years old and I loved this book!!!!!!!! My mother gave it to me and I couldn't put it down. I finished it in less then a week! PLEASE DO READ IT, IT IS SOMETHING YOU WILL NEVER FORGET!
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Summary: Thoroughly readable, but otherwise average
Review: I found this book to be an engaging and fairly light read which painted a fair picture of life for an immigrant Jewish family during the years of the Great Depression. However, at times it seemed to be a little too deliberate in pulling emotions out of the reader. An enjoyable read, but not necesscarily the best historical fiction I've come across.
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Summary: I like this book because it was interesting.
Review: I like this novel story because, Sara Smolinsky represents hopes of many immigrants, who came to America.It was hard at that time to survive in the new world, but Sara shows us, that we can build up ideas by ourselfs,and be whatever we want to be. I like the way she respects her father because she understood in the end that he was raised in the past century.
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Summary: This story is very interesting, because I learned a lot.
Review: I like this story very much. It reminds me of emmigrants that come to this country. Also reminds me about my sisters. It's very interesting because I learned a lot about emmigrants. I think that this book can motive many people in this country. Sara tried hard to become what she wanted. At the end when her mother died, she was sad because the last days she wasn't with her.When I read this story, it reminded me of my mother, that she is too old and I am far from her. I didn't like the father because he was thinking only about money. Sara was working hard in this country, and finally she found a man to love her and she was happy.
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