Letters From Rifka
Letters From Rifka By Karen Hesse is about a Jewish female immigrant who tries to immigrate to America and gets ringworm.
I think this book is a great example of historical fiction because of the research Karen Heese did about the time this story took place.
Karen Heese uses a lot of simile and some alliteration. For example on page 67 she writes, “There’s a fruit called a banana colored yellow like a June sun and curved.” Then on page 68 she writes, “Belgian Chocolate. It’s like biting into a corner of heaven.”
An example of the alliteration is “Nathan hid under a sack of burlap bags, one boxcar away from me.” (Page 6)
Karen Heese must have done a lot of research on the diseases typhus and ringworm considering that typhus was very common then. I did some research and found out that nearly three million deaths in Russia occurred because of typhus and more occurred in Poland. These were places where the story occurred and the typhus was caught by Rifka and her family.
I also found out a way to treat ringworm was to use tea tree oil. My guess is when she was getting her treatment her head was being washed with soap that had tea tree oil in it.
I think you should definitely read this book.
January 28th, 2008 at 5:22 am
Some great examples of why Hesse did such a great job writing this book! One thought — could you add a second sentence (after your summary of the book) giving us a sense of what you thought about the book as a work of historical fiction? You give us a nice concluding sentence, but one before you give us the examples would good too.
January 28th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
Looks great now!
January 29th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
I like how you gave my more info then Karen Hesse did. Good examples!!!!! I really thought you told me what happened and love when people do that.
Great blog!
KD
January 29th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
mm you are such a show off with the picture it looks great though.
-hh
January 30th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
Thanks Guys!
Do you have any ideas on how I can improve my writing?!
MSM
January 31st, 2008 at 5:26 am
hh, just checking — are you complementing mm because she put the picture in? Figure you are, but want to be sure.
February 1st, 2008 at 1:06 pm
This is c16mm.
February 1st, 2008 at 1:11 pm
hey mm what up. OK I love your summary sort of thing but the pix (K D told me to write this) is way to much. I really like hm how to improve your writting dont use female immigrant sounds to boring don’t put the pages numbers in brakets like (Page 6) it doesn’t look good. well K D is bugging me write a comment
-HH
February 1st, 2008 at 1:14 pm
I truly don’t think you need to really need to improve your writing that much. You are a very mature young lady. Like when you wrote “Letters from Rifka’s intriguing story drew me straight to the book the second I saw it.” True grown-up speach! Great discreptions and just need to be more age apporite.
February 28th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
I agree with K D