Hazel Rochman (Booklist, Aug. 1, 2005 (Vol. 101, No. 22))
Based on the experience of the author's grandfather at the turn of the twentieth century, this novel starts off as the archetypal Jewish coming-to-America story. Raizel, 12, leaves the Ukraine with her father, a devout peddler who flees pogroms and conscription into the czar's army, intending to send for the rest of his family later. The separation, the trauma, the dream of golden America, the journey across Europe, the ocean voyage, the inspections and arrival at Ellis Island--the historical detail is dense. But Raizel's lively first-person narrative is anything but reverential. She misses her brother, but she is jealous because he gets to go to school, and she resents her father's keeping kosher, which means they stay hungry during the journey in the crowded ship. Her view of adults and kids, family and strangers, back home and on the perilous adventure, brings the people on the journey very close. Best of all is the shocking surprise that changes everything, even Papa--a haunting aspect of the immigrant story left too long untold. Category: Books for Older Readers--Fiction. 2005, Cinco Puntos, $16.95. Gr. 7-10. Starred Review

Judy Silverman (Children's Literature)
Before you say, ‘oh, not another story about a family of Jews escaping the Pale of Settlement,’ or ‘haven’t we had enough of these escapes from Russia?’, please reconsider. True, the Balaban family must leave Russia as quickly as possible, so that is a familiar situation. Fortunately, the characters are more three-dimensional, more appealing, and more real than they are in many older books. The father is a scholar who will be drafted into the Russian army if he does not leave the country. Borrowing money from his wealthy brother, he manages to get two steamboat tickets to New York. But he has a large family--Mama, Raizel, Lemmel, Shloyme, and Hannah--so who will he choose to go with him? Lemml is the obvious choice. He is the oldest boy, and he has already started his studies. Despite this, Lemml does not like to study, and his father realizes that he will fall behind if he takes the time to go to America. Shloyme and Hannah are too young. So that leaves Raizel, who does not want to leave. But she has no choice. Her mother, who has no illusions about her husband’s lack of practical skills, has taught Raizel the basics of housekeeping and cooking, so she will have to take care of her father in America. Will she be able to go to school? What will her life be like? How can she stand to be so far away from her home? Add to these problems her father’s insistence on kosher food. When their food is stolen, he refuses to eat. He will not even take the oranges offered to him: “Benjamin Balaban does not take charity,” he says. Raizel is only twelve, and her abilities and ingenuity seem almost unbelievable. Nevertheless, even she is foiled by the inspectors at Ellis Island. Her father obviously has no marketable skills, and it is very possible that he will become a burden to the country. So they get sent back--not all the way to Russia, fortunately, but to Antwerp. In another stroke of fortune, Raizel makes friends with a wealthy elderly woman on the ship, who lives in Antwerp, and who is determined to see things go right for the Balabans. All these coincidences require a little too much suspension of disbelief, but the book is, in general, so readable that mine went flying overboard. Recommended. 2005, Cinco Puntos Press, $16.95. Ages 9 to 12.

Kirkus (Kirkus Reviews, October 1, 2005 (Vol. 73, No. 19))
Twelve-year-old Raizel chafes under the strict gender roles that govern daily life in her Ukrainian shtetl in 1905, but she is nonetheless reluctant to leave when her father decides that she, of all the family's children, should accompany him to America. Their journey is difficult, but more rigorous than the physical hardships are the challenges to Jewish orthodoxy they encounter along the way: Finding kosher food is so difficult, for instance, that her father refuses all nourishment during the Atlantic crossing. It is when they are refused entry at Ellis Island and sent back to Europe, however, that their faith is tested the most. Raizel is the perfect vehicle for the narrative, her yearning to read never leading to anachronistic feistiness, just an appropriately Jewish desire to interrogate the world around her and to question just how a Jew can fit into the universe beyond the shtetl. Her love of stories-that weave throughout the narrative-serves as both release from the terrors of the double crossing and prism for her spiritual quest. Outstanding in both its structure and its questioning of faith, this offering is not to be missed. 2005, Cinco Puntos, 216p, $16.95. Category: Fiction. Ages 10 to 14. Starred Review. © 2005 Kirkus Reviews/VNU eMedia, Inc. All rights reserved.

Janis Flint-Ferguson (KLIATT Review, January 2006 (Vol. 40, No. 1))
Raizel Balaban is almost 12 years old and she is about to journey from the Ukraine to America. With the Czar taking young men into the army, with pogroms, and with her father's failing business, the time has come for her family to make a dramatic change, and it has been decided that Raizel will go along to cook and care for her father until he can make enough money to bring the rest of the family to America. This novel follows their journey through the forest and into the city with many others who are also emigrating illegally. It tells of the people who helped along the way, and the people who took advantage of fleeing Jews in the early 1900s. Tal's details provide haunting images as she takes her grandfather's story and retells it through the eyes of his daughter. A girl who loves to tell the stories she learned from her grandmother, Raizel also shares with readers the heritage of the Russian Jews and the fear and the hardships of immigration. Intermingled is the crisis of faith of an observing Jew as he travels toward a different world from the one he left behind: Binyumin Balaban becomes Benjamin Altman as he steps off the ship and into Boston. But it is the love and wisdom of his daughter, who provides their story to the officials, that opens the door for him. Category: Hardcover Fiction. KLIATT Codes: J--Recommended for junior high school students. 2005, Cinco Puntos Press, 261p., $16.95. Ages 12 to 15.

Melissa Moore (The ALAN Review, Winter 2006 (Vol. 33, No. 2))
It’s 1905 in the rural Russian countryside, and Raizel Balaban loves helping her mother with her younger siblings and telling stories. The last thing she wants to do is go with her father to America. But the threat of pogroms and conscription into the Czar’s army force her and her father Benjamin to undertake an arduous, risky journey across Europe and the Atlantic. They survive seasickness, near drowning, and hunger (as orthodox Jews, they will only eat kosher food) only to be turned away at Ellis Island because of Benjamin’s poor health. Exceptionally and powerfully told, this story is historical fiction at its finest, treating important (though often neglected) issues of immigration and belonging, pride and faith. Category: Historical Fiction/Immigration. YA--Young Adult. 2005, Cinco Punto Press, 261pp., $16.95. Ages young adult.Jackson, TN

Hope Morrison (The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, February 2006 (Vol. 59, No. 6))
Although she loves to entertain her baby brother and sister with tales of the wonders of America, twelve-year-old Raizel doesn’t want to go to there; despite the pogroms and the uncertainty of being a young Jewish girl in 1905 Russia, she would much prefer the comfort and familiarity of her tiny village of Jibatov. She is left without a choice, however, when her father, Benjamin, comes home with two tickets--one adult and one child--and chooses her as his companion. This unusual immigrant tale focuses on the journey far more than the arrival; the trains, the covert border crossing through a raging river, the subsequent fever, the waiting for steamboat tickets in Antwerp, the passage over the Atlantic, and, upon arriving at Ellis Island, the declaration that an unfit Benjamin must return with his daughter to Russia. Back aboard, Benjamin retreats to his cabin, completely void of any hope and certain that he will be arrested for avoiding the czar’s draft. Meanwhile, Raizel befriends an elderly Jewish woman who proves their salvation, as she helps Benjamin and Raizel both financially and practically as they prepare for their third and final crossing. Raizel’s voice carries this introspective novel; full of reflections, memories, and carefully constructed metaphors, her narration effectively details the events of the journey. Infected with her grandmother’s “storytelling sickness,” she tells tales throughout the pages--folktales, religious tales, invented tales--that add an additional layer to this already multilayered novel. The role of religion is especially well described: a devout Jew who looks down upon modernized expressions of the faith and struggles with change, Benjamin is now caught up in an enormous change, one for which he was not fully prepared. While there are many stories of Jewish immigration in the early twentieth century, this uniquely told tale of double crossing deserves wide readership. An afterword is included. (Reviewed from galleys) Review Code: R -- Recommended. (c) Copyright 2006, The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. 2005, Cinco Puntos, 261p, $16.95. Grades 7-10.

Horn Book (The Horn Book Guide, Spring 2006)
Raizel, an intelligent girl and gifted storyteller, accompanies her pious father to America in 1905, leaving the family behind in rural Ukraine. The two are rejected at Ellis Island and cannot return until Papa compromises his principles and relies on Raizel. This novel features a series of well-told tales from the biblical, Talmudic, and cultural traditions of eastern European Jewry. Category: Intermediate Fiction. 2005, Cinco, 261pp, 16.95. Ages 9 to 12. Rating: 3: Recommended, satisfactory in style, content, and/or illustration.

Beth Karpas (VOYA, April 2006 (Vol. 29, No. 1))
Tal tells the story of her own grandfather's trip to America at the turn of the twentieth century, adding as a narrator a fictional daughter, Raizal, who serves as her father's companion on a hazardous trip half-way around the world. Twelve-year-old Raizal did not expect to leave the small Russian village of Jibatov ever, let alone to take a trip to America, a role that she thinks should rightly be filled by her adventurous younger brother, Lemmel, the oldest son. But Lemmel must stay in school, so Raizal is sent along to take care of her father. There is enough danger and adventure in any immigration story, but Raizal's is different. The title hints but gives nothing away. In this strong historical fiction novel, Raizal is a true storyteller even though she cannot read. She retells traditional folk legends taught to her by her grandmother and trades Chelm stories with her father, as well as makes up new tales in the Jewish storytelling tradition. The novel brings to life, at a very basic level, existence for a young Jewish girl isolated in a small village surrounded by Orthodox neighbors like herself, as she is suddenly thrown into other societies across Europe and at sea. The story focuses on the trip alone and the challenges to their traditions faced by Raizal and her father. Readers will look forward to a sequel focusing on Raizal's life in America. VOYA CODES: 4Q 4P M J (Better than most, marred only by occasional lapses; Broad general YA appeal; Middle School, defined as grades 6 to 8; Junior High, defined as grades 7 to 9). 2005, Cinco Puntos Press, 216p., $16.95. Ages 11 to 15.