New World Waiting - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Anne Gussin Faigen s first young adult novel, Finding Her Way, was published in 1997. A native Pittsburgher, she has taught college literature and writing classes and has had a long career teaching English to high school students.

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. . . . Molly didn't tell anyone-not even Cleo-how scared she was for [her father and brothers back in Poland]. At any time the Polish police could decide the Jews were the town's troublemakers. It didn't matter if they were honest shopkeepers minding their own businesses, trying to take care of their families. The police could storm in, arrest them for invented crimes, use any excuse to beat them.

. . . . Waiting for Cleo that evening outside the boardinghouse, Molly thought about the woman whose probing questions had angered her uncle. She wondered if, when she was older, she could be as bold and fearless as Miss Cather. She doubted it; maybe a person had to be born in America to feel like that.

. . . . They walked along Wylie Avenue toward the place where they were meeting Victor. Molly liked to look at the windows of the Italian groceries where long sausages, fat balls of cheese wrapped in cord, and chains of dried red peppers and garlic hung from hooks in the ceiling. As customers opened the doors, heady, ripe aromas wafted on the warm evening air.

. . . . Outside, the air was chilly, despite the sun. When the wind blew, bits of grit from the smoke stacks stung Molly's face. Miss Cather took her arm and they hurried along, heads down to avoid the wind, occasionally dodging others doing the same.

As they neared the boarding house they heard the shrill call of a newspaper boy with a thick stack of Pittsburgh Gazette's tucked under his arm. He held one up to tempt passersby.

"Get your paper here. Read all about the accident at the mill. Three workers scalded to death. Read all about it."

. . . . Molly and Cleo moved to the dining room where they saw a huge table draped in lace and laden with platters of tiny sandwiches, an array of pastries, fruits, and candies. Seated at one end of the table, Mrs. McNary presided over a silver tea service that glowed in the soft light from a crystal chandelier. Molly studied the rainbow of colors shimmering in the glass prisms, trying to memorize every detail so she could describe this house to her mother.