SuitabookFamily hardship and adjustment
After losing their home and possessions, Rebecca’s family faces financial hardship and tries to adjust to life in Winnipeg.
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Book details
Carol Matas - Author
This is a family-and-community story about rebuilding after a devastating fire. Rebecca’s separation from her parents places personal courage alongside questions of belonging, immigrant identity and the relationship between inherited traditions and new opportunities.
Rebecca learned at a young age how important it is to be liked, when her family left Russia to settle in Hirsch, Saskatchewan, a mostly Jewish community. But Rebecca's close-knit extended family returns from her triumph on-stage at an amateur night to find their home in flames. With everything they own destroyed, the family is devastated and penniless. They move to Winnipeg, where Rebecca's father struggles to find work, and where all the family members try to adjust to life in a big city. Rebecca is sent to live with a non-Jewish family until her parents get settled. There, she learns the true meaning of bravery, loyalty, and friendship. As she struggles to re-unite her family, Rebecca bridges the distance between the old world and the new, between her family's traditional immigrant values and the opportunities of the modern world.
Book Brief
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Sign in for personalised guidanceThis is a family-and-community story about rebuilding after a devastating fire. Rebecca’s separation from her parents places personal courage alongside questions of belonging, immigrant identity and the relationship between inherited traditions and new opportunities.
After losing their home and possessions, Rebecca’s family faces financial hardship and tries to adjust to life in Winnipeg.
The story contrasts Rebecca’s family’s traditional immigrant values with the opportunities of modern life as she moves from Saskatchewan to Winnipeg.
While living with a non-Jewish family, Rebecca tries to reunite her family and learns about bravery, loyalty and friendship.
The opening situation includes a home destroyed by fire, financial hardship, family separation and adjustment to a new city.
This is a grounded book brief while Suitabook strengthens the analysis: the current material supports only a cautious reading; another book-specific source is still needed.
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