My Grandmother's Journey

by John Cech

Book Overview

A grandmother tells the story of her eventful life in early twentieth-century Europe and her arrival in the United States after World War II. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0689818904
• ISBN13: 9780689818905
• Release Date: February 1998
• Publisher: Aladdin Paperbacks
• Length: 40 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.1" x 8.8" x 9.5"
• Age Range: 4 to 9 years
• Grade Range: Preschool to Grade 4

Customer Reviews

Hopeful

I love the perseverance demonstrated in this story. Based on the life of Feodosia Ivanovna Belevstov, the author's mother-in-law, who was born in pre-Revolutionary Russia in 1907, it is one of survival under harsh conditions. The story takes place during the Russian revolution, when the Whites (Mensheviks) lost to the Bolsheviks (Reds), Stalin's 1930s purges and World War II. Belevstov and her husband, who by then had an infant daughter, were captured by the Germans and forced into slave labor. Belevstov emigrated to the U.S. following liberation in 1947. This is a story of hope. It also offers a tender treatment of the Romany people. As a child, the author's mother-in-law once saw a caravan of Gypsy wagons drawn by tired horses through the first snow. A man and his wife and infant stopped for water, which the child ran to get. She begged her mother to let the family stay the night with them. The young Gypsy woman somehow knew that while the child had a good heart, she was often ill, and told her mother, "Tonight is the first snow. It is a time of healing. Let me try to help her." Having been to many doctors, all of whom were unable to treat the child's strange headaches, her mother cried in joy at the unexpected offer of assistance. The story goes on, "She bathed my temples with the water from the snowflakes.... She sang to me in her calm, deep voice. The song was old, old. I did not know the words, but they were soft and sure and rocked me quietly with their sound." The next morning the girl awoke to the sound of Gypsy bells as the caravan left the town, and ran after them to say goodbye. Ten years later, another caravan arrived, this time bearing a fortune-teller who predicted that the girl, now married, would some day cry out for a crust of bread, pray to endure one more hour, take every step in pain. Of course, with the revolution and World War II, all this came to pass, and the rest of the story is framed lovingly around the fortune that the Romany woman told. The vibrant illustrations evoke the quality of Russian folk art. Alyssa A. Lappen

A beautiful bedtime story

This is a beautiful bedtime story for all children, and a must for anyone descended of European immigrants. The story is the story of my relatives and my friends' relatives who travelled before, during, and some after, WWII, braving many dangers before bringing us safely to America. As the oral tradition of passing on these stories dies away, it is important to have reminders of our history and what our parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents went through to ensure our freedom and safety. It is a tale that also reminds us of the strength and courage of the human spirit, as well as the love and compassion that we all share for each other, even as strangers in foreign lands. The children I have shared this story with have become fascinated with the adventure (both light and dark sides), and enchanted by the drawings and motifs that are caught somewhere in between folk-art and eastern European designs.