Books for Students – Primary Grades:
Bader, Bonnie. East Side Story. New York: Silver Moon Press, 1993. Fiction, elementary.
Bial, Raymond. Tenement: Immigrant Life on the Lower East Side. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2002. Non-fiction (photo illustrations), upper elementary and middle school.
Bresnick-Perry, R. Leaving for America. San Francisco: Children’s Book Press, 1992. Narrative non-fiction (picture book), early elementary.
Cech, John. My Grandmother’s Journey. New York: Bradbury Press, 1991. Narrative non-fiction (picture book), elementary.
Cohen, Barbara. Molly’s Pilgrim. New York: Lothrop, Lee and Shepherd, 1983. Fiction (picture book), elementary.
Costabel, Eva Deutsch. The Jews of New Amsterdam. New York: Atheneum, 1988. Non-fiction (picture book), elementary.
Fisher, Leonard Everett. The Statue of Liberty. New York: Holiday House, 1985. Non-fiction, upper elementary and middle school.
Freedman, Russell. Immigrant Kids. New York: Puffin, 1995. Non-fiction (photo illustrations), upper elementary.
Gundisch, Karin. How I Became an American. Translated by James Skofield. Chicago: Cricket books, 2001. Fiction, upper elementary and middle school.
Harvey, Brett. Immigration Girl: Becky of Eldridge Street. New York: Holiday House, 1987. Fiction (picture book), elementary.
Hest, Amy. When Jessie Came Across the Sea. Illustrated by P.J. Lynch. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick Press, 1997. Fiction (picture book), elementary.
Levine, Ellen. If Your Name Was Changed at Ellis Island. Illustrated by Wayne Parmenter. New York: Scholastic, 1993. Non-fiction (illustrated), elementary.
Schanzer, Rosalyn. Escaping to America: A True Story. New York: Harper Collins, 2000. Narrative non-fiction (picture book), elementary.
Polacco, Patricia. The Keeping Quilt. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1998. Narrative non-fiction (picture book), early elementary.
Taylor, Sydney. All-of-a-Kind Family. New York: Yearling, 1980. Fiction, elementary and middle school.
Wells, Rosemary. Streets of Gold. New York: Dial Books for Young Readers, 1999. Narrative non-fiction (picture book), early elementary
Woodruff, Elvira. The Memory Coat. Illustrated by Michael Dooling. New York: Scholastic, 1999. Fiction (picture book), early elementary
Books for Students – Secondary Grades:
Auch, Mary Jane. Ashes of Rose. New York: Laurel-Leaf Books, 2002. Fiction, middle school to high school.
Hoobler, Dorothy and Thomas. The Jewish American Family Album. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Non-fiction, middle school and up.
Kenvin, Helene Schwartz. This Land of Liberty: A History of American Jews. West Orange, NJ: Behrman House, 1986. Non-fiction, middle school.
Lasky, Kathryn. Dreams in the Golden Country: The Diary of Zipporah Feldman, a Jewish Immigrant Girl. New York: Scholastic, 1988. Fiction, middle school.
Lawlor, Veronica. I Was Dreaming to Come to America: Memories from the Ellis Island Oral History Project. New York: Penguin Group, 1995. Non-fiction (illustrated), upper elementary and up.
Leiman, Sondra. America: The Jewish Experience. New York: UAHC Press, 1994. Non-fiction, upper-elementary and middle school.
Morrison, Joan, and Charlotte Fox Zabusky. American Mosaic: The Immigrant Experience in the Words of Those Who Lived It. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1993. Non-fiction, high school.
Roseman, Kenneth. The Melting Pot: An Adventure in New York. New York: Union of American Hebrew Congregations, 1984. Fiction, middle school.
Rubin, Susan Goldman. L’Chaim to Jewish Life in America: Celebrating from 1654 Until Today. New York: Harry N. Abrams, published in association with The Jewish Museum, 2004. Non-fiction (illustrated), middle school and up.
Strom, Yale (1996). Quilted Landscape: Conversations with Young Immigrants. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996. Non-fiction, middle school to high school.
Telushkin, Joseph. The Golden Land: The Story of Jewish Immigration to America. New York: Harmony Books, 2002. Non-fiction, upper elementary and middle school.
Wolfman, Ira. Do People Grow on Family Trees? Genealogy for Kids and Other Beginners: The Official Ellis Island Handbook. New York: Workman Publishing, 1991. Non-fiction, upper elementary and up.
Worth, Richard. Jewish Immigrants. New York: Facts on File Publications, 2004. Non-fiction, middle school and high school.
Books for Teachers*:
Baicker, Karen. Immigration Then and Now. New York: Scholastic Professional Books, 1997.
Berman, John S. Ellis Island: The Museum of the City of New York (Portraits of America). New York: Barnes and Noble, 2003.
Braunstein, Susan L., and Jenna Weissman Joselit, eds. Getting Comfortable in New York: The American Jewish Home, 1880–1950. New York: The Jewish Museum, 1990.
Brownstone, D.M. The Jewish-American Heritage. New York: Facts on File Publications, 1998.
Chermayeff, Ivan, Fred Wasserman, and Mary J. Shapiro. Ellis Island: An Illustrated History of the Immigrant Experience. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1991.
Coan Peter Morton. Ellis Island Interviews: In Their Own Words. New York: Facts on File, 1997.
Cohen, Jocelyn. My Future Is in America: Autobiographies of Eastern European Jewish Immigrants. New York: New York University Press, 2006.
Cordasco, Francesco, ed. Dictionary of American Immigration History.
Metuchen: Scarecrow Press, 1990.
Daniels, Roger. Coming to America: A History of Immigration and Ethnicity in American Life (2nd Edition). New York: HarperPerennial, 2002.
Diner, Hasia. Jewish Americans: The Immigrant Experience. Hong Kong: Hugh Lauter Levin Associates, Inc., 2002.
Diner, Hasia R. A New Promised Land: A History of Jews in America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Dublin, Thomas. Becoming American, Becoming Ethnic: College Students Explore Their Roots. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996.
Edinger, Monica. Far Away and Long Ago: Young Historians in the Classroom. Portland, ME: Stenhouse, 1997.
Foner, Nancy. From Ellis Island to JFK: New York’s Greatest Waves of Immigration. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002.
Howe, Irving. World of Our Fathers: The Journey of the Eastern European Jews to America and the Life They Found and Made. New York: Shocken Books, 1989.
Kleeblatt, Norman L., and Susan Chevlowe, eds. Painting a Place in America: Jewish Artists in New York. New York: The Jewish Museum, 1991.
Lehrer, Warren, and Judith Sloan. Crossing the Boulevard: Strangers, Neighbors, Aliens in a New America. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2003.
Metzker, Isaac, ed. A Bintel Brief: Sixty Years of Letters from the Lower East Side to The Jewish Daily Forward. New York: Behrman House, 1982.
Riis, Jacob. How the Other Half Lives. New York: Penguin Books, 1997.
Schoener, Allan. The American Jewish Album: 1654 to the Present. New York: Rizzoli International Publications, 1983.
Walzer, Michael. What It Means to Be an American. New York: Marsilio Publishers Corp., 1996.
*Many of the resources for educators are appropriate for high school students as well.
Links:
The American Jewish Historical Society
http://www.ajhs.org
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Homepage
http://www.uscis.gov/graphics/index.htm
"Immigration…The Changing Face of America"
(Library of Congress educational resource)
http://memory.loc.gov/learn/features/immig/immigration_set2.html
"Selected Images of Ellis Island and Immigration, c. 1880–1920"
(from the collections of the Library of Congress)
http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/list/070_immi.html
“The New Americans”
(PBS educational page)
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/newamericans/
Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration
(U.S. Department of State)
http://www.state.gov/g/prm/
"Immigration: Stories of Yesterday and Today"
(from Scholastic)
http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/immigration/index.htm
Lower East Side Tenement Museum
http://www.tenement.org
Statue of Liberty – Ellis Island Foundation
http://www.ellisisland.org
National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights
http://www.nnirr.org
JewishGen: The Home of Jewish Genealogy
(An affiliate of the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust)
http://www.jewishgen.org
From Haven to Home: 350 Years of Jewish Life in America
(An online exhibition from the Library of Congress)
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/haventohome/