Customer Reviews

Hope in My Heart: Sofia's Immigrant Diary, Book One (My America)

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Nine-year-old Sofia Monari and her family have left Italy and traveled to America in hopes of finding a better life. But on Ellis Island, their trouble begins. Sofia is suspected of having a contagious disease and is separated from her family and sent to live in quarantine. There, she finds nightmarish conditions and longs to be reunited with her parents, sister, and brothers. As the weeks go by, she wonders if she will be trapped in quarantine forever, even though she was never sick to begin with. When another girl her age, an Irish immigrant named Maureen, comes to live in quarantine, Sofia makes a friend. Maureen's friendship gives Sofia the strength she needs to make it through this separation from her family, but will she ever see them again? I recommend this new book to fans of the My America series.

My 8-year-old daughter was assigned this book at school. She read it in about an hour and said "It's the best book I ever read in my life." She's prone to exaggeration but she's also read a lot of great books.

"Hope in My Heart: Sofia's Immigrant Diary, Book One" is an interesting start to an immigration diary series in My America. I've read a few Ellis Island immigration related stories before (not too many), but never have I read one about the bribery incidences and detained immigrants on Ellis Island. It's so sad to think that foreigners who were coming to America for a better life were only to be greeted by evil, conniving, and thief-like people disguised as doctors, nurses, and other authoritative individuals. This book shows the frustration non-English speaking people experienced, and how they were treated as infants and senile people, in hopes of taking their belongs and sending them back to their homeland over supposed medical diseases. Kathryn Lasky wrote this wisely, leaving much to be desired about Sofia and her family, and I look forward to the sequel books. I recommend.

I LIKE IT IT WAS A SWEET STORY AND SAD BUT IT WAS GOOD