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Letters from Rifka, by Karen Hesse, is a good example of an historical fiction book. One of the reasons it is great historical fiction is because there are quotes from the Russian author Pushkin in it. In the book there is a girl named Rifka who emigrated from Russia to America. She writes letters to her cousin Tovah in the margins of a Pushkin book. At the beginning of each letter Hesse includes a quote from Pushkin such as these: “…and from the gloomy land of lonely exile to a new country bade me come,” and “…and with a sword he clove my breast, plucked out the heart he made beat higher, and in my stricken bosom pressed instead a coal of living free.”

On her way to America, Rifka goes to Motziv, Poland where she gets typhus. Typhus was a disease that people got all over the world, and if you had typhus you would never get it again. After Rifka’s parents and one of her brothers got typhus they got held up in their journey. After everyone is better they are ready to go to America when Rifka gets ringworm. The rest of the family goes without her. Fortunately someone from the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society takes her in until she is healthy and able to go to America to join her family.

This book has a lot of historical fiction facts and it is a great book too.

The book is about my mom immigrating to America. She immigrated from Moscow Russia to America. She immigrated when she was 12 years old. She came to America for a better life. She hade an amazing trip to America and America is still amazing to her.