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Summary: This is a good book
Review: My name is Bessie Hurwitz, and I read this book in my 6th grade LA class.This book is deep and touching. It is told though the youngest of the Smolinsky daughters, Sara. The father is a preaching tyrant. He cannot make a living, but sits and prays all day, saying the woman is the curse, and blames his daughters for his mistakes. Sara runs away and tries to survive in the world by getting a college education. This story paints life for immagrants in New York during the early 1900's. Sara tells about how she feels about life. I can really enter her world. It is not a light read, but it is worth your while. The ending seems disapointing, but I don't want to ruin it for you. It's one of the books that you'll never forget about.
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Summary: ImmigrantExperience
Review: Often when in such a class, European immigrants are not thought of as having as much of a struggle. This book about an East. European family is very heart-wrenching and interesting.
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Summary: Begging for Sympathy?
Review: Okay, I've read books about Family life and this one has little artistry. Sure it shows how a young jewish girl struggles with her life, but does it by begging for the reader's sympathy. Sympathy should be earned by showing the reader rather than begging for it. Harry Potter is a good example of that. Potter had a nasty homelife, but did he complain as much as Sara Smolinsky?
No.
If you want to read a good book on struggling families, read something like A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.
Rating:
Summary: excellent book
Review: Read this book. I read it for the first time 8 yrs ago in 10th grade for a high school english class and I still read it over and over. Some might feel that the book isn't accurate in terms of the historical references. I think those people are missing the point. It's fiction based loosely on the author's experiences. And it is not a "pity-me" book as some have said. The narrator - the main character Sara - is so determined to make her own path in life and feels so strongly about the injustices of an old-world mentality, that you can't help but feel for her struggle. It is a quick, heart-warming and inspiring read and will no doubt stay with you whether your parents are immigrants or not.
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Summary: quintessential feminist/immigrant novel still inspires
Review: Some 75 years after its initial publication, Anzia Yezierska's Bread Givers surely deserves recognition as a classic of Amerian literature. I regret not having read this moving and provocative novel earlier in my life; I know its themes of self-discovery, conflicted Jewish identity and Americanization would have encouaged both identification and introspection. I am astonished that high schools today do not include this as an essential core text (instead opting to use F. Scott Fitzgerald's Great Gatsby, also published in 1925 as a paradigmatic novel). Yezierska's novel has the ring of truth to it, resonating with such crucial themes as self-awareness, cultural marginalization of immigrants, loss and recovery of ethnic identity, feminist discontent and awakening sexuality. In my mind, Sara Smolinsky has far more to teach us about the American Dream than Jay Gatsby. Yet, the prevailing literary criticism lionizes the WASP world-view of Fitzgerald and essentially disregards the Jewish/immigrant sensibilities of Yezierska.The novel is uncommonly accessible. Dialogue carries much of the action; the chapters could be read as independent short stories, and internal soliloquies provide us with the opportunity to test our own judgments against those of the earnest and self-actualizing Sara Smolinsky. The suffocating but omniscient presence of her tyrannical father best represents Sara's constant confrontation with conflict. The dilemmas provided by the father-daughter relationship ring with universal truths even though the setting is particular to the Hester Street Easter European Jewish experience. I know that my Latino, Asian, and Pacific Islander students could easily translate this novel, some three generations old, into their own experiences. The Persea Books edition owes its existence to the admirable efforts of Professor Alice Kessler-Harris, whose exceptional introductory forewards are worth the price of the edition alone. Professor Kessler-Harris sheds light not only on Yezierska's tumultuous life but provides a scholarly discussion of the significance of the novel.
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Summary: Inside some of Jewish women in 20th century
Review: The Bread Givers takes place in 20th century. There were many immigrants. It was hard for old people to change their life, culture and tradition. I was angry with Sara's father (Mr. Rob Smolinsky) who always thought how to get money from his daughters. I admire Sara for her struggle and hard study in school. Sara shows us the life is hopeful and won't be dissapointing.
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Summary: Uplifting, disquieting, inspirational
Review: This book has touched me deeply. My grandparents were these Jewish immigrants fighting for a place in America and my mother the heroine of this story. It explained clearly the love/hate embrace/spurn duality existing within me toward my parents, the community of my childhood, and my heritage. Thank you, Anzia, for writing this book.
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Summary: the Bread Giver is a monumental classic
Review: This book illustrates the hardships all immigrants had to endure. Also, this book illustrated the way society acted towards immigrants and woman in that time period. I'm taking an A.M studies class, and this book greatly represented the time period I'm studying.
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Summary: I wanna go thank my Professor for assigning this !!!!!!!!
Review: This is one of those books I read as a class reading assignment, so I felt "forced". But as I read it, I realized I was 5 sessions ahead of the class. It's a book you cannot put down. This is a book that shows us what it means to work your way to the top, to have will and determination to make something of yourself, and to pursue your goals. It makes us appreciate the wise ways of the past generation, although they may not always be favorable ways today !! It is a book I will never forget !! Please get a copy NOW !!!
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Summary: The Bread Givers saved my life!
Review: This may sound crazy, but this little book helped bring me out of a severe depression. I was seriously contemplating suicide when my friend Wilma gave me a copy of this book that she had to read for her college literature class. I feel like a new person after following the experiences of the main character of the story, Sarah as she works her way through college as a lowly daughter of poor Jewish immigrants from Poland. I guess it hit home because I from Lithuania, which is right next door to Poland and because I have a lot of Polish friends. Anyway, to make my point, if you want to read a good book, and you can't afford prozac, then read this book!
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