Review #35: Hannah's Journal by Marissa Moss

Title: Moss, Marissa. Hannah’s Journal. Harcourt, Inc. 2000. 65 Pages. Paperback $7.00. ISBN 978-0-15-216329-7
Genre: Historical Fiction
Reading Level/Interest Level: 4.3/Grades 4-6
Awards: None
Series: Young American Voices
Similar Titles: Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan, Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank, Rachel’s Journal: The Story of a Pioneer Girl by Marissa Moss, Galen: My Life In Imperial Rome by Marissa Moss, American Girl series.

Many of us can trace our ancestors back to the great immigration wave that hit the United States between the 1880’s and 1910. In many of those cases, or in most of the cases that we read about, those immigrants were men and boys who came to America to escape persecution, work hard, claim the freedoms that their home lands denied them, and then were to send back for their families to join them. Very seldom do we hear tales of women and girls doing the same, until now.

Hannah’s Journal is the story of a twist of fate that sends 10 year old Hannah, the only girl in a family of 7 Jewish children growing up in Lithuania, to America, with her 14 year old cousin, to find work and send back for her family, one at a time.  Her family is living in Russia during a time of great civil unrest, when Cossack raids and religious prejudice caused the death and financial ruin of many Jewish families. When her family narrowly escapes one such violent raid, shortly after the death of her 16 year old cousin, Rivka, a decision is made between Hannah’s parents and her Uncle to send Hannah and her remaining cousin, Esther, to America.

Esther will travel with Rivka’s papers, to meet her intended bridgegroom, their sponsor, while Hannah will travel as Esther, so as not to waste the tickets and passport. But first, the timid Esther and the brave Hannah will have to make their way to Hamburg, Germany to find and board the steamship that will take them across the ocean to their new lives. Along the way, they meet the helpful and ingenious, Samuel, whose parents were killed by Cossacks near Minsk. Together they help each other survive the poor conditions of steerage and the frightening proposition of failing inspection and being denied entry into the United States.   

Based on facts taken from the lives of the author’s family, tales like Hannah’s need to be told over and over, not only because they show where we came from, but of what we are capable of, even as children, and how much we have to be grateful for. How often does a 10 year old today think of the poor conditions and grueling work that their forefathers endured to make a better life for their families? When a child finally realizes what was expected of children a few generations previous, their 21^st century complaints might not seem so relevant, for who can complain of a having to wash dishes by hand when the dishwasher is out once they learn that their great-grandparents were lucky to HAVE dishes at their age, escaping starvation only by the $1.50 a week they made (most of which was saved) by their jobs and the spoiled or partially ruined food they were able to obtain, working in cramped factories in poor conditions, without the luxury of their parents’ presence.

This book is presented as Hannah’s journal, written in cursive script on lined pages with illustrations and notes filling in the margins, but with a glossary and further culturally relevant notes at the end of the story. The "child drawn" pictures help convey the emotions, conditions and sights that a 10 year old would have experienced during such a journey and it is obvious that the author has done a lot of research to make it as realistic as possible. Readers will forget, after having read only a few pages, that this title is a work of fiction, as they gobble up each page as hungrily as if they were reading their sister’s diary.  Hannah’s Journal gives a renewed depth and purpose to the lives of many tweens, and more importantly, connections to their pasts.

On a personal note: My absolute favorite part of this book, as an educator and future librarian, was when Hannah sees a grand New York library for the very first time. Realizing that all people are allowed to use it (for she, as a girl, was not allowed an education in Russia, though her father and brothers taught her as much as they could), she writes home to her parents, recounting the experience as well as that of her new night classes in English, beyond delighted at the opportunities before her, stating, "We had found the gold that people had said paved America's streets, and we felt very rich indeed.