A HOUSE OF TAILORS

With her sure storytelling voice and gentle-hearted touch, Giff spins another tale of immigration, this one her German great-grandmother’s story. Dina is a typical teen, mooning over handsome soldiers and fashionable hats, and immigrating to an idealized America. Arriving in Brooklyn to stay with her Uncle and family, reality strikes: Dina is overwhelmed with homesickness and the uncle is impoverished. Worse, he expects her to pay for her keep by sewing all day, a skill that she possesses but despises. Predictably she makes her way, winning over the dour uncle, proving her worth, and making indispensable contributions to her new family. Like the best of Giff’s heroines, Dina is winningly flawed, full of childish self-interest, but she grows in her understanding of herself, her skill with a needle, her place in the family, and the recognition that, like all immigrants, she will always have a heart in two places. The plot is swept along by dramatic truths of Brooklyn life in the 1870s: economic struggle, epidemic, and fire, as well as a hint of romance. Giff’s fans will be pleased. (Fiction. 9-12)