The Orphan of Ellis Island: A Time-Travel Adventure

by Elvira Woodruff

Overview

An exciting time-travel adventure to Italy in 1908!

One day, on a class trip to Ellis Island, Dominic Cantori faces his worst fantsty—a tour guide asks the children about their families. But Dominic is an orphan, living his entire life with one foster family after another and has no family to call his own. Not wanting to be part of this conversation, Dominic flees from his class and hides in the museum until everyone leaves and it's dark and deserted. Now, his only solace is the recorded voices on the display telephones of the immigrants who came to Ellis Island so long ago. But to Dominic's surprise, the voice of the Italian immigrant suddenly begins to speak directly to him! And before he knows it, he's transported back in time—to Italy in 1908. There he unlocks the door to his past, where he discovers what it means to be loved—and to be part of a family!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780590482462
Publisher:	Scholastic, Inc.
Publication date:	07/01/2000
Series:	Time Travel Adventures Series
Edition description:	Reissue
Pages:	192
Sales rank:	222,982
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 7.63(h) x (d)
Lexile:	810L (what's this?)
Age Range:	9 - 12 Years

About the Author

The bestselling author of GEORGE WASHINGTON'S SOCKS and THE RAVENMASTER'S SECRET, Woodruff has written more than twenty books for children, including picture books, historical fiction, and lighthearted fantasy. Her numerous school visits each year are popular with kids and teachers. The sequel to GEORGE WASHINGTON'S SOCKS, GEORGE WASHINGTON'S SPY, will be published in November 2010. She lives with her family in Martin's Creek, Pennsylvania.

Editorial Reviews

Gr 4-6Dominic Cantori has spent most of his life in foster care. When a guide asks Dominic's fifth-grade class to talk about their families during a field trip to Ellis Island, the boy is embarrassed because he has no heritage to discuss, and hides in a storage closet where he promptly falls asleep. Waking after the museum is closed, he panics until the prerecorded voice of one of the exhibits soothes him back to sleep. When he wakes again, he finds himself in Italy in 1908. He is befriended by three orphan brothers who are waiting for sponsors to pay their passage to America. Dominic becomes part of their adventures and gains a new sense of family. When one of the brothers dies tragically, Dominic accompanies the other two to America and discovers that the boys may actually be related to him in more than just spirit. He arrives on Ellis Island, first as a new immigrant, and finally as a boy returning from a long journey, or perhaps a dream, that has given him a new sense of himself as well as hope for his future. Easy to read and hard to put down, this convincing novel gives a poignant and believable picture of the lives and motivations of some of this country's immigrants, and of one boy who learns about himself. While the time-travel element and subsequent plot twists occur almost too easily, the characters and situations are too involving to quibble about story construction. An enjoyable and informative tale.Susan L. Rogers, Chestnut Hill Academy, PA

School Library Journal

A colorless adventure through time as an orphan discovers something about his past.

Fifth-grader Dominic is on a class trip to Ellis Island, thinking about how he has outgrown his unfashionable shoes and how different he is from his well-off classmates. A friendless orphan and frequently relocated foster child, Dominic has recently made an embarrassing mistake that makes him eager for the next upheaval. He longs for a family of his own; after he is accidentally locked into the park building, he makes contact with a long-dead relative and travels back to Italy in 1908. There he meets three orphan boys; desperately poor and hungry, two of them eventually make passage to the US on a ship, after illness kills the other. The boys are needy, but Dominic marvels at their sense of family, and it is eventually clear that they are his ancestors. Dominic returns, with precious knowledge of his roots, to a brighter present in the form of a new foster family. Woodruff includes details about the adventure that make it compelling, but the story is drily told and often heavy-handed.

Kirkus Reviews