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    Just Call Me Joe
    Just Call Me Joe
    Just Call Me Joe
    Ebook67 pages47 minutes

    Just Call Me Joe

    By Frieda Wishinsky

    ()

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    About this ebook

    The year is 1909 and Joseph has just immigrated to the United States from Russia. He thinks that life in New York City will be wonderful, but he has not bargained for the challenges of learning English and of resisting the pressures to skip school, steal and fight to earn a place among the boys in his neighbourhood. Just Call Me Joe presents a full picture of life in New York City for the working poor. Anna, Joe's older sister, struggles to cope with the terrible factory conditions of the time. Aunt Sophie must take in boarders to make ends meet. And Joseph must both accept change and remain true to himself in a new city with new challenges.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOrca Book Publishers
    Release dateOct 1, 2003
    ISBN9781554696550
    Just Call Me Joe
    Author

    Frieda Wishinsky

    Frieda Wishinsky is the international award-winning author of over seventy books. She writes picture books, chapter books, novels and nonfiction. Her books have been translated into many languages. Frieda lives in Toronto, Ontario.

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      Book preview

      Just Call Me Joe - Frieda Wishinsky

      Evans.

      Chapter One

      Sometimes They Send You Back

      We’re here! We’re in America! shouted Joseph, waving his cap in the air.

      All around him people shouted and waved, as the ship passed the gleaming Lady with the Torch, the Statue of Liberty. It was as if all the misery of the last three weeks, the smells and sickness of too many people packed too tightly together, had disappeared into the early morning fog.

      Joseph! Your cap . . . said his seventeen year old sister, Anna. But before she could finish her sentence, Joseph’s brown cap flew out of his hand.

      Oh no! thought Joseph as he watched his cap ride the waves like a toy boat and then sink into the Atlantic.

      Oh Joseph, said Anna. Papa made it for you.

      Joseph sighed. It was true. Papa had made it for him, but he couldn’t let losing a cap spoil this wonderful day.

      It was already old and torn, Anna, said Joseph. In America, I will buy a new cap. In America, I will buy an American cap.

      Anna said nothing, but Joseph knew what she was thinking. He was thinking it too.

      Mama. Papa.

      At that moment, he would have given all the gold in America to have Mama and Papa there beside them.

      Joseph closed his eyes and imagined his parents as they looked the last time he saw them. Papa, tall and stooped from days hunched over his sewing machine, tears flowing down his cheeks as he kissed his children goodbye. And Mama, her curly hair tinged with gray, whispering over and over, Take care of each other.

      But Joseph didn’t want to think about his parents now. It hurt too much. It was better to remember how good it would be never to be frightened again by murderous Russian soldiers sneaking up on you in the woods or bursting into your house at night. Three months ago a drunken soldier had found him gathering mushrooms in the woods and pointed a gun at his head. Next time you won’t be so lucky, Jew, he’d warned. And a week later, two of Joseph’s fourteen-year-old cousins had not been so lucky. They were murdered in the neighboring shtetl, a small town much like Joseph’s own.

      Night after night, for a week after their deaths, Papa and Mama stayed up late talking. Then early Sunday morning, they told Anna and Joseph they had made a decision.

      You must go to America, said Papa. We have just enough money for your passage. Anna, you are old enough to find work and look after Joseph. My sister Sophie in New York will help you. She is on her own since her husband died two years ago and she has no children. We will come as soon as we can.

      Papa had placed his warm hand on Joseph’s shoulder. And you will help Anna, Joseph. You are strong and smart.

      Papa was right.

      So what if he was only ten? So what if he was short for his age and skinny as a stick? Didn’t he outwit that bully Mendel? Mendel was taller and stronger than Joseph, but that didn’t matter. Joseph had tied Mendel’s laces to the table at heder, their school, last week, and Mendel had crashed to the floor before he could snatch Joseph’s bread.

      I’ll get you for this, Mendel sneered.

      Me? said Joseph, in an innocent voice. I’m not good at knots.

      A tug at his sleeve woke Joseph from his thoughts. Look Joseph, said Anna. Look at New York City. It’s so big.

      Joseph’s eyes widened as he looked up at the skyline. Buildings like castles towered side by side. It was all so tall, so new, so unknown. So different from the shtetl with its low wooden buildings all jumbled together. He knew every house, every farm, every tree in the shtetl. He knew every wagon and stand in the bustling marketplace where the peasants sold their fish, grain and vegetables and where he helped mama sell the pants and shirts Papa sewed.

      In America he knew nothing. Nothing

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