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Boxes from the Attic—An Immigrant’s Story
"A historically valuable and visually stunning collection of personal musings...."- Kirkus Reviews
Told by her daughter, Thea's life is a lesson in resilience. Raised in Holland in a comfortable middleclass family, Thea moves to Palestine as a young woman, seeking adventure and love. She finds both in a man named Paul and marries him against the backdrop of World War II and the turmoil in Palestine, soon to become Israel.
But when she is widowed early, Thea moves forward—even as she grieves her unfathomable and untimely loss— driven by her dream to get her young children to the land of opportunity: the United States of America. Through faith, grit, and unyielding optimism, she embraces the challenges of a new culture and thrives.
Thea’s incredibly powerful and inspiring story is based on authentic personal diary entries, writings, newspaper clippings, and photos found by her daughter in boxes tucked away in the attic.
These discussion questions were provided by the publisher, DartFrog Books.
Book club questions for Boxes from the Attic—An Immigrant’s Story by Miriam Kurtzig Freedman
Use these discussion questions to guide your next book club meeting.
What do you think of the author’s discussion of Thea as an “ordinary” person who lived an “extraordinary” life. Check out page 208’s brief discussion about extraordinary life. Are there people in your life who are “extraordinary”—even if they’re not rich or famous? What makes them so?
What did you think of Thea’s immigrant experiences—to Palestine and then to the USA? Are there people in your family with similar/different experiences?
Is anyone doing your family history? Is it you? Is it important to you? If so, why? In the future, how will we do family history in our digital age—when we only have emails and texts as resources? Should we try to preserve something? If so, what?
Thea as a parent. What do you think about her child rearing? What mistakes did she make? What did she do well? How did her childhood affect her parenting?
One of the saddest parts of the book was about Thea dealing with her son’s suicide. Can you relate to that? Do you have such horrors in your family? Does the family discuss them? Ignore them?
Thea dealt with unfairness in her upbringing. Are there examples in your parents’ decisions that you felt were unfair? Or brilliant? Or OK? Did they affect how you raised your own kids?
What did you think of the 20th century history embedded in this book? Did you enjoy that? Were there surprises? Did any of it change your views about 20th century events?
Thinking about your own mother, what was her greatest strength? Gift? What characteristics of hers have shaped your own behavior?
The book includes many of Thea’s life lessons. See, for example, page 207. Do you have words/sayings that you carry with you from your parents? Do your kids carry such words from you? Care to share?
Boxes from the Attic—An Immigrant’s Story Book Club Questions PDF
Click here for a printable PDF of the Boxes from the Attic—An Immigrant’s Story discussion questions