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Letters From Rifka is a great book by Karen Hesse about a Jewish family with a boy in the army and another boy about to go there the family is trying to escape Russia because of their brutal treatment for the Jews. They make it to Poland but on October 5 1919 the Typhus hits. this is what Rifka has to say.
“October 5 1919
Motzif,

Dear Tovah,
I thought we would be in America by now but we remain in Poland stranded by illness….”(21)
This book has great writing from Pushkin such as this
“…and from
The gloomy land of lonely exile
To a new country bade me to come….
-Pushkin” (1)
It has so many dates and place names that you feel like you are really there.
I think Hesse did a great job writing this book!

Peter and the Starcatchers is an amazing book about a boy named Peter who is the leader of a group of orphan boys they are put on a ship the Never Land to serve King Zarboff the third. When Peter asks a pretty girl named Molly who is also on the ship why she holds up three fingers when she says, “I’m practicing if you don’t salute him like that when you say the third he cuts your three middle fingers off. And he has a pet snake and if one of his servants doesn’t please him he feeds he/she to his snake.”

Later on the voyage Peter finds a trunk with a flying rat next to it. When Molly seems to know too much Peter tries to get her to explain herself she is stubborn but she eventually tells Peter what he saw was not pretend it was the power of a material called star stuff and if the “others” were to get their hands on just a little bit of star stuff they would dominate the world.

The star stuff can also give the Starcatchers the power to fly when they touch it. The star stuff can turn objects into an extraordinary form for example fish into mermaids and it just so happens that the largess supply of star stuff ever fallen to earth!

Meanwhile it turns out that the first mate of the Never Land one of the others and it also turns out that nasty pirate Black Stash has figured out that the trunk of star stuff is the greatest treasure ever brought to sea. Molly’s father Lord Aster in an attempt for safety has gone on another ship that has a fake trunk filled of sand.

Peter and Molly befriend each other and Peter becomes a Starcatcher and helps them keep the world safe from all the villainous creatures on the face of the earth that could do harm if they touch the star stuff that is so powerful they would use it for world domination which would bring every body to their doom in less than thirty minutes! When the ship crashes Peter, the boys, Molly and their sailor friend Alf are washed ashore and taken by the Molsks (Savages) to Master Grin. The pirates find the island and the chase is on. Will the young Starcatchers prevail over evil?

Dave Barry has written a brilliant novel with an amazing cast of characters. Anybody that reads this will be in for a real treat. I love it and so will you!

My book is about Pasco coming to America from Yugoslavia for a better life. He is now my super. When he left Yugoslavia it was a communist country. He took a plane here. It took eight hours. I think he likes it in America. I like it here too.