Castle on Hester Street is a warm and whimsical tale about immigration. Having left Russia for America, Julie’s Jewish grandparents describe two different journeys. While her Grandpa illustrates wondrous tales of castles and flying gold wagons, her grandma corrects his embellished truths by shining a light on what their journey was truly like.
Heller does a brilliant job of highlighting the complex issues surrounding immigration. Grandpa’s imaginative and fanciful stories capture the hope and excitement of joining a new land; while grandma’s story gently depicts the hardships immigrants endured. The historical touches sprinkled with affectionate storytelling complement each other to tell a fun, yet informative tale. ( )

On the first page, the little girl, Julie, seems to be the protagonist. As the story goes on, we learn that the Grandparents are in fact the main characters as they tell their story about immigration. The Grandpa tells these wild, extremely fantasized stories and the grandmother consistently corrects him with the truth. I think this book shared a handful of valuable things. The story provides children with information about immigration in earlier times and possibly how their own family member got to America. This could also be used to show children that you can always look at things differently, there's always various perspectives on things. Though the grandfather was aware of the saddening truth, he continued to have a good attitude and make the best of his story. ( )

For some, freedom alone can bring feelings of grandeur. "Castle on Hester Street" expresses this through the imagined stories told by Julie's grandfather. Having left Russia for America, he tells colorful stories of his voyage to freedom. Her grandmother corrects each story with a morsel of truth, depicting their quest of immigration in a truer light. Although their time in America had been hard, it was still a beautiful tale in either voice. Now that the journey was over, their family knew how great freedom felt. ( )

“Castle on Hester Street” by Linda Heller is a story about immigration. In this story, a young girl is spending time with her grandparents. While she is visiting them, her grandfather begins to tell her the “true” story about how he and his wife came over to America. The grandfather tells his granddaughter that he came over in a golden wagon pulled by a goat that could fly. He claims that his wife was famous and that he lived in an extravagant castle. The grandmother yells at the grandfather for making up such a story and tells the granddaughter the truth. Throughout the story, the grandfather makes up some extravagant story about immigrating from Russia while the grandmother makes a point of telling the truth. This story is a great way to begin the conversation about immigration with young readers. It makes them realize that immigrating is not easy and often times immigrants face a lot of hardships. This is also a great place for young readers to begin thinking about how everyone has a different point of view on a story and often times they are not all correct. I really enjoyed this book due to all of the things stated above and would definitely recommend it.