01-02 Young Hoosier Book Award Masterlist (Gr 4-6)

ANNOTATION

In the summer of 1910, Dossi, a poor Russian immigrant from the tenements of New York, spends two weeks with the Meade family on their Vermont farm, and all their lives are enriched by the experience.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Two weeks seems like forever to Dossi Rabinowitz, a poor Jewish orphan from New York City who is sent by the Fresh Air Fund to a small Vermont town during the summer of 1910. With her journal as her closest companion, Dossi reflects on her struggle to understand her Christian host family and their rural community-and learns about the wonders not only of fireflies and stars but also of new friends and forgiveness. Weaving engaging historical details with resonant themes, Johanna Hurwitz's richly textured new novel will be welcomed by her legions of fans.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

The 120-year-old Fresh Air Fund, which gives free rural vacations to inner-city children, here provides readers the chance to explore not one but two period settings. In the summer of 1910, 12-year-old Hadassah (Dossi) Rabinowitz, born in Russia and now orphaned, leaves the small room she and her sister share on New York City's Lower East Side to spend two weeks with a Vermont farm family. She brings the blank book she has won for "best achievement" in her seventh-grade class, and her entries comprise the narrative. Hurwitz (author of the 'Class Clown' books) does not attempt to ape a 12-year-old's writing the chapters are replete with dialogue and traditional exposition. The Meades have never met a Jewish person before but are open-minded. One daughter likes Dossi immediately; the other, standoffish at first, eventually becomes a good friend. The story line is somewhat artificially pumped up around a brand-new library book that gets ruined; although there is also a fire (in which Dossi plays a heroine's part), the chief interest lies in the conscientious presentation of two different cultures. Dossi reports excitedly on Mrs. Meade's canning and the girls' farm chores; she in turn tells the Meade sisters about the pickle barrels on Delancey Street and her sister's long days at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. Hurwitz's research is convincing and her protagonist sympathetic enough to forgive the author's few contrivances; readers will likely be drawn to this little-known slice of history. Ages 7-up.

Children's Literature - Kathleen Kelly

The author of such modern-day favorites as Aldo Applesauce and Ever-Clever Elisa turns her hand to historical fiction in this book, set in 1910. Dossi, a poor orphaned girl from New York City, finds herself on a trip to Jericho, Vermont, as a beneficiary of the Fresh Air Fund. Her older sister, Ruthi, insists that it will be good for her, but Dossi isn't so sure. When she arrives at the home of the Meade family, fourteen-year-old Emma immediately takes a dislike to the new guest. Dossi gradually adjusts to the family, and even gets to meet a local celebrity, Wilson "Snowflake" Bentley, an actual historical figure who was the first to photograph snowflakes. Though such details sometimes seem a bit forced in the context of the story, the Author's Note, which separates fact from fiction, will prove valuable to teachers. Regardless of pedagogical use, this gentle story with its well-drawn characters will surely speak to young readers.

Children's Literature - Jan Lieberman

Readers have a glimpse of what it was like for a poor Russian-Jewish immigrant from New York in 1910 to visit a farm in Vermont with the Meades, a Gentile family. The Meades learn about Dossi's traditions such as not eating meat unless it is kosher, or not drinking milk when there is meat on the table. In return, she learns how to gather eggs, milk cows and takes part in alerting the Meades to a barn fire that puts their house in danger. The historic facts appear in the Author's Note. The Fresh Air Fund was established in 1877 and is still in existence. It has succeeded in giving city children a chance to taste life in the country.

School Library Journal

In 1910, a 12-year-old Jewish girl from New York's Lower East Side spends two weeks with a Vermont family through the Fresh Air Fund. Dossi, short for Hadassah, lives in a tenement room with her older sister and knows only the sights and smells of her crowded community. She takes two library books with her on the long train journey to help dispel her fears, but finds that her sponsors are warm and sharing people. Each experience on the Meades' farm is new for Dossi: the size of cows, the wonder of fireflies in the night, and the quantity of food on the table. There are mild cultural differences. The Vermonters have never seen a Jew and Dossi, although non-observant, will not eat pork or mix meat and milk products. Still, she becomes friends with the two girls in the family and helps to save a neighbor's livestock when a barn catches fire. Told through Dossi's journal entries, this pleasant story is sometimes marred by stilted conversation. However, it has a happy ending and the added interest of an actual historical person, Wilson Alwyn Bentley, who first photographed snowflakes. Susan Pine, New York Public Library

Horn Book Magazine

Set in the early days of the Fresh Air Fund program, which has provided summer country respites for poor urban children since 1877, this gentle historical novel gives us not only a trio of engaging girls but an accurate glimpse of Vermont farm life in the early twentieth century (not to mention a chance to meet Wilson Alwyn Bentley, the first person to discover that no two snowflakes are identical). Twelve-year-old Hadassah Rabinowitz, Dossi for short, reluctantly leaves her Lower East Side home for the "adventure" that her older sister, Ruthi, has arranged. Escaping "the city and the dirt and the crowds and the heat," Dossi boards the train with her journal, a brand-new copy of "Anne of Green Gables" from the library, and a great deal of trepidation. The ensuing journey and stay in Jericho, Vermont, is told in the first person through journal entries and correspondence with Dossi's sister. The story of two cultures meeting and learning to respect each other is told subtly, with natural dialogue from the period. The introduction of "Snowflake" Bentley is handled skillfully, so that the personality of the man and his place in history are clearly revealed. A good choice for a different focus on cultural diversity.Read all 6 "From The Critics" >