Bread Givers

Dear Reader,

How are you doing? I am well, I read Anzia Yezierska's "Bread Givers" instead of sleeping last night. Did you ever have a book that you couldn't stop reading? Seriously, a book so enthralling that you could not just settle down and turn the light off? That was this book for me. It is about a Polish-born immigrant girl named Sara living in nineteen-twenties New York. More than anything, she wants a college education and to become a schoolteacher. After witnessing her father arrange three disastrous marriages for her older sisters, Sara breaks away from the family and moves out. As she is unmarried, this is considered a social disgrace. She starts attending night school, and eventually gains entrance into an exclusive east coast college. Sara pays her way for tuition by working late nights in a laundry.

What I love about this story is that it doesn't have a happy, tie-it-all together ending. Sara starts out college with a reputation of being the socially awkward Polish Rube and finishes college as the Polish Rube. What's the difference? Her degree and the knowledge she's gained. And I love Yezierska's beautiful, raw realism. Almost none of Sara's dreams are realized (like gaining campus popularity or earning her Father's respect), but the one she wanted MOST does: she gets her baccalaureate degree and starts teaching. And that, my friend, is life. And that is a happy ending.

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