Chil­dren’s

The Doll Maker’s Gift

Sashi Fried­man; Jes­si­ca Schiff­man, illus.
  • Review
By – April 24, 2012
Pogroms have been occur­ring more and more often in Nora’s lit­tle town in East­ern Europe. Her fam­i­ly decides that the only way to ensure the safe­ty of Nora and her sis­ter safe­ty is for the fam­i­ly to leave for Amer­i­ca, how­ev­er they must trav­el sep­a­rate­ly as mon­ey is very tight. Nora’s father, in Amer­i­ca first, begins to send back mon­ey for the ship’s pas­sage but soon the fam­i­ly real­izes that they can­not wait any longer and they know they must board the ship. In the mean­time, the price of the tick­ets has increased and they only have enough mon­ey for two tick­ets. It is decid­ed that as the youngest, Nora must stay behind with a car­ing doll mak­er and his wife until the fam­i­ly can afford anoth­er tick­et. Unable to bear the thought of Nora being left behind, the doll mak­er cre­ates a spe­cial doll with a secret com­part­ment which will enable her to join her moth­er on the trip. Illus­tra­tions in warm pas­tel col­ors depict each stage of the sto­ry. Chil­dren will won­der at Nora’s mirac­u­lousvoy­age and will learn the impor­tance of sav­ing another’s life. This book is rec­om­mend­ed­for ages 8 and up.
Dro­ra Arussy, Ed.D., is an edu­ca­tion­al con­sul­tant who spe­cial­izes in inte­grat­ing Jew­ish and sec­u­lar stud­ies, the arts into edu­ca­tion, and cre­ative teach­ing for excel­lence in Jew­ish edu­ca­tion. She is the moth­er to four school-age chil­dren and has taught from pre-school through adult. Dro­ra is an adjunct pro­fes­sor of Hebrew lan­guage at Drew University.

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