Katelynn Arroyo

SSE 6615
Internet & App Search/Literature List
Internet Sites
1. Interactive Tour of Ellis Island
a. Name of Site: Scholastic
b. Website Address:
http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/immigration/tour/
c. Brief Summary: This website provides an interactive tour of Ellis
Island for students to take in order to see the different steps and stops
immigrants made while going through the immigration process at Ellis
Island. Each part of the tour includes a story with background
information about the specific step in the immigration process, photos
and a did you know? question and answer section for students to
further explore the process. Also on this site is a Virtual Tour of Ellis
Island where students would be able to watch a video about the
immigration process and the long, difficult journey many immigrants
endured during their travels across the Atlantic Ocean to the United
States.
2. Ellis Island Immigration Museum
a. Name of Site: The Statue of Liberty Ellis Island Foundation, Inc.
b. Website Address: http://libertyellisfoundation.org/immigrationmuseum
c. Brief Summary: This website provides an overview of the Ellis Island
Museum which is located in the Main Building of the former
immigration station complex. There are many links for people to learn
about the history of Ellis Island and certain exhibits including The
American Family Immigration History Center, The American Immigrant
Wall of Honor, Journeys: The Peopling of America 1550s-1890s, The
Journey: New Eras of Immigration and The American Flag of Faces. This
website also includes a link to the award-winning film documentary
Island of Hopes, Island of Tears which is a great resource to learn
about the history of Ellis Island, the significance of the Statue of Liberty
to Ellis Island as well as the process immigrants had to go through to
make it to the land of their dreams. This website is a great resource to
find primary sources about this time period.
3. Ellis Island
a. Name of Site: History
b. Website Address: http://www.history.com/topics/ellis-island
c. Brief Summary: This website provides a detailed history of Ellis Island
from when it was first built in 1892. There is a video you can watch
which explains the history of Ellis Island as well as the immigration
process immigrants had to endure passing through into America. This
website also includes a timeline of important events that happened
during this time period. There are also many pictures and videos of

Ellis Island, the immigration process, the Statue of Liberty, and

immigrant success stories located on this website.
Apps
1. Statue of Liberty
a. Name of App: Statue of Liberty Tour Guide
b. App Address: Android Play Store
c. Brief Summary: This app is a virtual tour guide for people who wish
to visit the Statue of Liberty. Included in this app is a virtual tour of the
Ellis Island Museum. There is an option to read information on the
museum or you can listen to it in an audio format. The app explains
how Ellis Island was the busiest immigration inspection station from
1892 to 1954 and how 12 million immigrants passed through before
shutting down in 1954. After 1965, Ellis Island was made a part of the
Statue of Liberty National Monument, so it is an essential part of this
interactive tour guide. This app also includes a virtual tour of the
American Immigrant Wall of Honor, an attraction at Ellis Island with
over 700,000 immigrant names inscribed onto it.
2. Ellis Island
a. Name of App: The History of Ellis Island
b. App Address: Apple iPad App Store
c. Brief Summary: This app was created especially for kids and focuses
solely on the first piece of land touched by millions of immigrants, Ellis
Island. This app provides children with the history of Ellis Island and
what is was like for immigrants who traveled a long, difficult journey
for the hope of a better future.
Literature List
1. Title: Dreaming of America: An Ellis Island Story
Author: Eve Bunting
Brief Summary: Dreaming of America: An Ellis Island Story is a childrens
picture book about the first Ellis Island Immigrant, Annie Moore, a 15-year old
Irish Immigrant, who traveled on the steamship named Nevada with her two
younger brothers to reunite with her parents and other sibling in New York.
This story recounts the long, difficult journey Annie faced traveling to
America, caring for her two younger brothers and becoming the first
immigrant processed through Ellis Island on her 15 th birthday.
2. Title: The Story of the Statue of Liberty
Author: Betsy Maestro
Brief Summary: The Story of the Statue of Liberty is a childrens picture
book written with simplified text for the youngest audience and explains how
the statue was built, as well as how each piece was constructed and
transported to America. This book also includes information about how the
statue is enjoyed today by many people. After the story ends, this book
includes different resources that teachers could use to teach students about
the Statue of Liberty including important dates, names of people who

contributed to the statue, actual dimensions of the statue and different

restorations that have been made to the statue since it was originally built.
3. Title: If Your Name Was Changed at Ellis Island
Author: Ellen Levine
Brief Summary: If Your Name Was Changed at Ellis Island is a book about
the process for immigrants coming to America including where they left from,
the long, difficult journey, arriving at Ellis Island and the procedures for
passing through, and what they did when they left the Island. The book is
written in a question and answer format and answers many questions about
immigrants including what the immigrants brought with them, how their
names may have been changed, and what happened if they did not speak
English.
4. Title: Coming to America: The Story of Immigration
Author: Betsy Maestro
Brief Summary: Coming to America: The Story of Immigration introduces
children to the history of immigration to the United States and offers a
perspective on the heritage that all Americans share. This book explains
various reasons why people came to America, the various laws that the US
has adopted to control immigration, and a brief history of Ellis Island. This
book also includes personal stories from immigrants who left their home
country to start a new life in America.
5. Title: Dreams in the Golden Country: The Diary of Zipporah Feldman, a
Jewish Immigrant Girl
Author: Kathryn Lasky
Brief Summary: Dreams in the Golden Country: The Diary of Zipporah
Feldman, a Jewish Immigrant Girl is the diary of Zipporah Feldman, also
known as Zippy, who is a Russian immigrant and describes her familys first
year and a half living in New Yorks Lower East Side. Zippy has dreams of
becoming an actress in New Yorks Yiddish Theater and is over excited when
she is given the opportunity to be a prop girl. Zippys joy soon becomes
crushed when her baby brother dies just a few days after birth and her sister
runs off to marry a non-Jewish man, and her other sister forms an organized
union, which is frowned upon by her mother. Zippy becomes conflicted and
begins to wonder if she can make a new life for herself in a country that is not
so golden anymore.
6. Title: Immigrant Kids
Author: Scott Foresman
Brief Summary: Immigrant Kids is a book about what it was like to be an
immigrant child in the early 1900s. Children often had to work selling
newspapers, delivering goods and working in sweatshops. This book focuses
on immigrant children in New York and includes many touching photographs
and descriptive words showing just how difficult an immigrants life was.
7. Title: The Arrival
Author: Shaun Tan

Brief Summary: The Arrival is a wordless picture book that tells the story a
mans immigration to a strange new land and the people and places he
discovers on the search to find a new home. This book recounts his
experiences leaving his family, boarding a ship to travel to a new land, and
finding himself lost. Everything from the language to the buildings to the
birds is strange for this man and as he continues to find lodging, food and
work, he meets other immigrants who tell their own stories of hardship and
escape.
8. Title: The Memory Coat
Author: Elvira Woodruff
Brief Summary: The Memory Coat is a story about two Russian cousins who
are forced to flee their home country when Russian soldiers come to round up
the Jews. They make the long difficult journey to America, hopeful that they
will pass inspection at Ellis Island. Grisha is almost turned away because of a
cut on his eye, but Rachel turns his coat inside out to hide the doctors chalk
mark. This story is one of courage and bravery and depicts the hardships
that immigrants endured traveling to America.
9. Title: When Jessie Came Across the Sea
Author: Amy Hest and P.J. Lynch
Brief Summary: When Jessie Came Across the Sea is a story about a young
Russian girl named Jessie who lives with her grandmother during the World
War I time period. Jessie is chosen to go to America by the rabbi and is
fearful of leaving her grandmother, her only family. Jessie makes the long
journey to America all alone, but meets other immigrants who are just as
frightened as she is who she finds comfort in. After Jessie arrives in New York,
she realizes how hard it is going to be to find work and save up enough
money to bring her grandmother to America.
10.
Title: The Copper Lady
Author: Alice Ross, Kent Ross, and Leslie Bowman
Brief Summary: The Copper Lady is a story about a Parisian orphan named
Andre who is mistreated by his guardian. He takes interest in the building of
the Statue of Liberty and watches and helps to build it. When he hears that
the statue will be given to the United States as a symbol of friendship, Andre
decides to stow away on the ship transporting the statue in hopes that
America will turn his misfortune into his dreams. In the dramatic conclusion,
it is Andre who saves the statue when the ship encounters a terrible storm.
11.
Title: I Hate English!
Author: Ellen Levine
Brief Summary: I Hate English! Is a story about a Chinese immigrant from
Hong Kong named Mei Mei who is having difficulty adjusting to the new
language and culture at school in New York City. She fears that she will lose
her identity learning English because there are words in English that there are
not in Chinese. When Mei Mei finally does speak English, with the help of a
teacher named Nancy, she speaks for twenty-two minutes without stopping,
showing that she knew how to speak the language, but just refused to speak
it.

12.
Title: I Was Dreaming to Come to America: Memories from the Ellis
Island Oral History Project
Author: Veronica Lawlor
Brief Summary: I Was Dreaming to Come to America: Memories from the
Ellis Island Oral History Project is a book in which immigrants recall their
arrival into the United States in their own words. This book includes
biographies and facts about the Ellis Island Oral History Project. These
biographies and facts are coupled with hand-painted collage illustrations.
13.
Title: The Long Way to a New Land
Author: Joan Sandin
Brief Summary: The Long Way to a New Land is a story about a Swedish
family facing starvation and after receiving an encouraging letter from family
who had already made the long, difficult journey across the Atlantic Ocean,
have a newfound hope for life in America. This book follows the family
through their journey and arrival at their new land.
14.
Title: Watch the Stars Come Out
Author: Riki Levinson
Brief Summary: Watch the Stars Come Out is a story about two young
immigrants who come to America to meet their parents in New York. The
story is told by a grandmother to her granddaughter about how her and her
brother crossed the ocean by ship alone, their journeys ups and downs, and
the medical inspection they had to go through at Ellis Island. The story ends
as the grandmother recalls arriving in America, reuniting with her parents and
seeing the palace that they now live in.
15.
Title: What Was Ellis Island?
Author: Patricia Brennan Demuth
Brief Summary: What Was Ellis Island? is an informational book that
explains how Ellis Island was a gateway to a new life in the United States for
millions of immigrants. This story explains the significance of Ellis Island to
immigrants from 1892 to 1954 as well as what happened after it closed down
and how it was restored in later years to become the museum that it is today.
16.
Title: The Keeping Quilt
Author: Patricia Polacco
Brief Summary: The Keeping Quilt is a childrens picture book about the
authors great-grandmothers arrival to America from Eastern Europe. Her
dress and babushka become part of the quilt that has been handed down
from generation to generation in the authors family. The quilt was made to
never forget their home back in Russia and has been used as a Sabbath
tablecloth, a wedding canopy, and a blanket that welcomes babies warmly
into the world.
17.
Title: All the Way to America: The Story of a Big Italian Family and a
Little Shovel
Author: Dan Yaccarino
Brief Summary: All the Way to America: The Story of a Big Italian Family
and a Little Shovel is a story about the authors great-grandfathers arrival at

Ellis Island with a small shovel and advice from his parents to work hard,
enjoy life and never forget your family. Through four generations, Yaccarino
recalls how his great-grandfathers little shovel was passed down to family
along with that good advice.
18.
Title: Emmas Poem: The Voice of the Statue of Liberty
Author: Linda Glaser
Brief Summary: Emmas Poem: The Voice of the Statue of Liberty is poem
written by Emma Lazarus in 1883 who was deeply moved by the influx of
immigrants from Eastern Europe. This now famous poem, The New Colossus,
gives a voice to the Statue of Liberty and defines the United States as a
nation that welcomes immigrants.
19.
Title: Island of Hope: The Story of Ellis Island and the Journey to
America
Author: Martin Sandler
Brief Summary: Island of Hope: The Story of Ellis Island and the Journey to
America is a story of immigration told through the voices and stories of those
who passed through Ellis Island. This book tells about the first immigrant who
passed through Ellis Island at just 15 years of age, Annie Moore and of the
other 12 million immigrants who followed her. There were many reasons why
the immigrants fled their home countries in search for a better life which
included religious persecution, political oppression, or economic hardships.
Other immigrants were pulled to America by the promise of new
opportunities.
20.
Title: The Blessing Cup
Author: Patricia Polacco
Brief Summary: The Blessing Cup is a story about a young Russian girl
named Anna and her family who lived a hard life and had very few
possessions; their most valued treasure was a beautiful china tea set which
was a wedding gift to Annas parents. With this tea set came a wish that said
Anyone who drinks from this will have blessing from God. They will never
know a day of hunger. Their lives will always have flavor. They will know love
and joy and they will never be poor. When Annas family leaves Russia for
America, they bring this tea set with them which helps them make friends
and find better lives in America.