Dreams in the Golden Country: The Diary of Zipporah Feldman, a Jewish Immigrant Girl

I read this book a an adult. I think this is a wonderful book that touches on several social and political issues with out the gloom and doom tone of other Dear America books. I always enjoy this writer’s way of getting the topic out there without sounding like an adult. Also men who try to write these Dear America stories just cannot get into the spirit or mind set of being a 12 to 14 year old girl. Highly recommend it!

This was the first Dear America diary I ever read, and I love it more than any of the others except A Picture Of Freedom. Perhaps it is because of what I learned in history as a young child about the Second World War, and the Civil War - but I have always had a special feeling about blacks and Jews. At any rate, "Zippy" and Clottee stole my heart. Dreams do come true.

I just finished this book and hope to read another Dear America book. I am about the same age as Zippy.I understood her pain about being ignored and was very suprised how good the book was. I read it, ONE, because I am jewish and TWO because I wondered what life was like in 1903-1905. I would read this book any time and suggest it to anyone. This book is definetly worth 400 stars!

This is my pure favorite! I love the story of the Jewish emmigrants and this book does it's best to show the many hopes they held in America. I really loved the character Zipporah and the many other characters. Zipporah was full of hopes and dreams, as well as worries. The book was very good at depicting life in America and describing historical events. The storyline was purely amazing! There was tension and once in a while a surprise. There were times that made me cry and times that made me happy. The setting and details were also amzing! Kathryn Lasky is even more accurate than Kristiana Gregory(much more accurate believe me!) This book is very heartwarming and will take your breath away!

Dreams in the Golden Country was another great Dear America book. It is the diary of Zipporah Feldman, a Jewish immigrant girl from Russia, in which she describes her family's first year and a half living on New York City's Lower East Side. Zipporah, or Zippy as she is called, dreams of being an actress in New York's Yiddish theater, and is overjoyed when she is given a job as a prop gir. But her newfound joy is overshadowed by the death of her baby brother when he is just a few days old. To make matters worse for her mother, Zippy's older sister, Miriam, recently ran off to marry a non-Jewish Irish boy, and her sister, Tovah, believes in women's rights and has organized a union, both of which Mrs. Feldman dissaproves of. Plus, one of Zippy's friends dies in a factory fire. Can Zippy really make a new life for herself in this so-called "golden country" that isn't so golden after all?

Zipporah is another excellent Dear America book. Zippy, 12 years old, has just arrived at Ellis Island from Russia, where the pogroms (attacks on the Jews) chased them away. Traveling with her mother, her sisters, Miriam (15), and Tovah (17) her family goes to meet her Father who has been in America for 2 years. There they find a small tenement room. Everyone is disapointed. Zippy's mother is worried about her father loosing his Jewish faith. Zippy gets put in an early grade because she isn't very talented in English, but she moves up. Zippy learns about things and writes letters to the famous Marie Curie and Wright Brothers (never gets a reply back). Then she sees the theater and knows acting will forever control her destiny. Filled with hardships and triumphs, Zippy's diary is one of the best. It really isn't very exciting with a lot of stuff happening, but the emotional factor is so great and really makes me think. I was also happy that Zippy had the same birthday as me.