Hello, America #6

Quote #1:

"Ocean Avenue is basking in the golden rays of the late afternoon sun, and I feel like embracing it's radiance, clutching my bosom together with my diploma. -Elli, page 229

Significance:

This was the part after Elli checked her mailbox and found out that she got her High School diploma which meant that she could go to college.  This was a really happy moment for Elli, like her happiest moment the whole book, this was the beginning of the life she had always wanted.

Personal Connection:

If something like this happened to me I would feel like Elli felt too. I would feel really happy to and I would want to tell people, but Elli couldn't tell anyone because everyone was working.

Question:

Did you think Elli would pass the test and get the diploma?

Quote #2:

"Livia Bitton-Jackson born Elli L. Friedmann in Czechoslovakia, was thirteen when she, her mother, and her brother were taken to Auschwitz." - Elli, About the Author

Significance:

Oh my gosh this book was based on a true story!... it was real! ... it was like a biography! Elli is a real person! Oh my gosh I had not idea, I thought that this was just a made up story but it's real. I didn't know that Livia Bitton- Jackson was Elli and that all of these things really happened.  That's why I chose this quote because it was the quote that stood out to me the most while I was reading this last part of the book tonight.  I can't believe that everything that happened in this book really happened.  This book just showed me how hard being a new immigrant in America really was.  Oh, and since her last name is Bitton that means she married David Bitton, that guy from the subway.

Character Analysis: Elli-

Reading this book, and reading about everything that Elli went through in order to get a better life makes me think that if somebody sets their mind to something, it can be accomplished.  Elli went through so much, from surviving the Holocaust, to adapting to a new culture in America, all she wanted to do was be a teacher.  Now she has a PhD, she's a best selling award winning author, and she lives in Israel, in the book she always said she always wanted to go to Israel.   Elli started off with nothing but she kept on trying and she never gave up and in the end it payed off. 

Question:

Did you know that this book was based on a true story?