Toba lives in Rus­sia in 1905. Her Papa left for Amer­i­ca because of the con­tin­u­al pogroms. Her moth­er has said that they are safe now but they remain fright­ened. A let­ter arrives from Papa with tick­ets to Amer­i­ca for Toba and her broth­er but he can­not yet afford to send for Mama and the baby. It is espe­cial­ly hard to leave Zei­de who is too old to trav­el. Zei­de gives Toba a spe­cial sid­dur even though she is unable to read. We are remind­ed that many girls were not taught to read at that time because they were female.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the pre­cious sid­dur dis­ap­pears dur­ing the first storm on the ship and along with it a let­ter to Papa from Mama. Toba is beside her­self and she and her broth­er try to find it. They arrive in Amer­i­ca with the mys­tery of the red sid­dur unsolved.

An excel­lent pic­ture of the entry process at Ellis Island is pre­sent­ed. After some tense moments, Toba is reunit­ed with her father. Instead of streets paved with gold as expect­ed, there were “…cob­ble­stones, cob­ble­stones, cob­ble­stones, as far as the eye could see.” It is in this envi­ron­ment that the fam­i­ly solves the mys­tery of the miss­ing sid­dur and awaits the arrival of Mama and the baby.

This book is one of a series which focus­es on dif­fer­ent loca­tions both in Europe and Israel that tell about the immi­grant expe­ri­ence. It is heav­i­ly reliant on coin­ci­dence and hap­py end­ings but it sat­is­fies the expec­ta­tions of the chil­dren for whom it is targeted.

Rec­om­mend­ed for ages 7 – 10.