Touched by Fire by Irene N. Watts
This was a fascinating read, I asked for this from netgalley
because I am fascinated with the Triangle Fire tragedy but this book is about
so much than just that, it is a fabulous immigrant story.
We meet teenaged Miriam and her family when they are living
in Kiev, they have already lived through the pogroms (which is a violent
massacre or persecution of an ethnic or religious group, particularly one aimed
at Jews) and there is hints at more to come, but her parents have a dream, to
go to the golden land to America where no one burns you for being a Jew. They
start their journey by getting out of Kiev and moving to Germany to make enough
money for Papa to go to America first and for him to make enough money for the
rest of the family to come over. It is 2 years before enough money is saved and
the tickets arrive for Miriam, her mother Sara, her brother Yuri, and baby
sister Devora to make the great sea voyage. However Miriam’s brother is a
little brat who doesn’t want to leave, sorry Yuri really made me mad in this
story and Devora has been sickly and the doctor advises that she not go on this
trip. Ok that is all I am going to tell about that part *No Spoilers*.
The book goes on with Miriam’s story her sea voyage , what
that was like and the conditions for these passengers was pretty grim, but I liked
how the author let us see through Miriam’s eyes that first look at New York harbor
the Statue of Liberty and arriving at
Ellis Island. I thought her descriptions of this and the Lower East Side made
you feel like you were there and was well written. So there is so much more to
this book than the Triangle Fire which I’m sure you have guessed is where
Miriam gets a job and after still having nightmares from the Pogrom’s of her
childhood this was a pretty tough time. One caveat here, the description of the
fire is very graphic so teens or adults with a weak stomach may have a hard time
with that.
I really enjoyed this book and pretty much read it in one
sitting, this was my first book by Irene Watts though I have been meaning to
try her books, I will now be reading
more of her books. I really enjoyed her writing and the descriptions of time
and place were well done.
I would recommend this to teens and adults alike and will be
buying the paperbook for our library!
4 Stars
As I said I received this book from netgalley for a fair and
honest review.
This one is going on my TBR list. Susie, if you're interested in a newspaper account of the events of that day, I recorded one for LibriVox. It can be found in this collection http://librivox.org/historic-newspaper-articles-volume-2/
ReplyDeleteIt's the 14th article in the collection and runs almost 45 minutes long. Some of it was very difficult to read and the reporter wasn't as concerned about keeping his emotions in check when writing about the fire. A horrible event in our history but it should be remembered.
Glad to learn about this book!
Thanks!
Lee Ann
Thanks I will find that one..it was awful but at least it changed things for the better and for future workers, this book did have a couple very graphic descriptions but I believe they were truthful like the sounds of the bodies hitting the ground, I would guess everyone there never forgot that awful sound.
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