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Emma's Poem: The Voice of the Statue of Liberty
“Give me your tired, your poor, / your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, . . . ” (from “The New Colossus”) A friendship gift from France to the United States, the Statue of Liberty had nothing to do with immigration until Emma Lazarus, commissioned to write a poem as part of a publication to raise money to erect the statue in New York harbor, imagined the immigrants who would see it upon their arrival in America and gave the statue a voice—one of fierce compassion. Emma was a wealthy Jewish American writer whose view of the world, and her role in it, had changed after she visited Ward’s Island in New York harbor. “They [the immigrants] were the poorest people Emma had ever seen. Her heart hurt to see them.” Linda Glaser’s prose poem captures Emma Lazarus’s brief life as a woman defying expectations of class and gender to work for and with the poor, and the determination that led her to write the extraordinary piece that forever turned the Statue of Liberty into a symbol of America’s promise. Claire A. Nivola’s lovely watercolor and gouache illustrations pair delicacy of detail with a bold assertion in the cover art that the promise embraces the diversity of all who have and continue to come to the nation’s shores. ©2010 Cooperative Children’s Book Center
Illustrated by Claire A. Nivola
CCBC Age Recommendation: Ages 8-11
Age Range:
Grades 3-5 (Ages 8-10)
Grades 6-8 (Ages 11-13)
Formats:
Biography, Autobiography and Memoir
Picture book
Subjects:
19th Century
Class Issues
Girls and Women
History (Nonfiction)
Immigration and Immigrants
Jewish People
U.S. History
Diversity subject:
Jewish
Publisher:
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publish Year: 2010
Pages: 32
ISBN: 9780547171845
CCBC Location: Non-Fiction, 811 Glaser