When Jessie Came Across the Sea

Hest, A. (1997). When Jessie came across the sea. Cambridge, MA:  Candlewick Press.

What would you do if you were told that you were leaving your home to live with a woman you had never met in a country you had never seen?  That's what happens to a young thirteen year-old girl, named Jessie, in When Jessie Came Across the Sea.

Jessie lives with her grandmother in a poor Jewish village.  The rabbi in the village is given a ticket to America and decides that Jessie will travel to New York City and live with his sister-in-law.  Jessie travels on a boat to Ellis Island and meets a young boy named Lou.  Not long after Jessie arrives in New York, she learns English and becomes a success in a dress shop.  One day Jessie receives a letter from her grandmother.  What happens to Jessie's grandmother?  What happens to Lou?  Find out in Amy Hest's wonderful picture book, When Jessie Came Across the Sea.