This book contains much information on the immigrants that traveled to New York's Ellis Island, from the 1880s to 1910s. The author answers a total of 36 questions in decent length regarding the Ellis Island experience. I felt that the question answer format of the book kept me engaged longer and made my reading experience easier. I learned a lot of information from this text- like how doctors marked "sick" immigrants with chalk or how each immigrant had to have $10-$25 dollars on them in order to pass through. One thing that I appreciated about the book was that it touched on historical events in other parts of the world and how other cultures were affected at this time, causing immigrants to move to the US. I felt that this helped me paint a fuller picture of the beginning of Ellis Island, and I imagine that it would do the same for younger students. ( )

Beginning with an introduction about what Ellis Island is, this book explores issues of immigration such as why people chose to leave their homelands and why did they choose to come to the United States. Centered around entering through Ellis Island, this book give a nearly step-by-step explanation of the process of going through Ellis Island from how they got there to what test they had to pass to get allowed into the country. This book provides many facts about Ellis Island and is rounded out by issues such as immigrant contributions, why names were changed and finally, why did Ellis Island close. ( )

NOT recommended. Thankfully out of print, as it perpetuates the myth (with its title and section near the end) that names were changed at Ellis Island and other immigration ports of entry in the 1800s and 1900s. They almost always were NOT changed there. If changes were made, they happened when the ship's manifest was made (so either a mistake writing it down, or the passenger gave the information). The immigration officials at Ellis Island and other ports of entry had to match up people with names as entered on the manifest. Many immigrants did change their names, but usually well after arrival, to make them easier to spell or pronounce, or to "fit in" better.

Summary:
In this children's book, the topic covered is Ellis Island. Once you got to Ellis Island your name was changed to make your name sound less foreign and more "Americanized". This books talks about life at Ellis Island was like as the center for immigrants coming to live in America.

Review:
This book is very informative and highlights the struggles that the immigrants from Europe dealt with as they came into the Unites States. The detail given and the way it was written was very powerful and really did portray the feeling on someone going to Ellis Island. ( )

This book is perfect for students who want to know more about Ellis Island. The book is setup by the chapter titles as the questions. The questions are great for the students to really get know what happened during those years at ellis island, or america in general. Perfect for your history book collection in your classroom library. ( )