This book was kind of scary at first because you kind of saw the disease coming on. But then as she gets through treatment you kind of get what is going to happen in the ending. And then you're wrong.

I think it is sooooo worth to read this book and every day I think about this book I think about the hard time I had moving, leaving my friends, leaving my favorite restaurants, and leaving my very nice neighborhood and very nice and loving neighbors.

In this book, Rifka is forced to leave her home and everything she has ever known to go to America. Not that she misses it much, anyway. Along the way, she faces many hardships and is even separated from her family! The only way she documents all this is through the book of poems her cousin, Tovah, gave her. Will she finally get to America and be reunited with her family? Read the book to find out!

Letters from Rifka is a historical fiction novel about a family who is leaving Russia and trying to get to America. Rifka is the youngest member of the immigrant family. She is diagnosed with ringworm and forced to separate from her family until she is healthy. Even though this book is written in the present tense, at the end of each chapter, Rifka signs it as a letter to her cousin Tovah. Rifka admires and looks up to Tovah, who is still in Russia. She is writing these letters in old Russian books, but plans to figure out how to send them to Tovah when she gets to America. I found this book difficult to get into at first, but once I reached around page 20, the action and events started to pick up. I enjoyed how Rifka was so impressed by new ideas such as chocolate and ice cream. I also liked how she used her mother’s locket as a way of being connected to her. In general, this is an interesting book about how one girl can be so brave. Hang in there for those first 20 pages, because after that, I’m sure it will catch your attention! From Zach, age 11, Ohio