Emma's Poem: The Voice of the Statue of Liberty

By Linda Glaser and Claire A. Nivola

Give me your tired,  your poor
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free...Who wrote these words?  And why? In 1883, Emma Lazarus, deeply moved by an influx of immigrants from Eastern Europe, wrote a sonnet that was to give voice to the Statue of Liberty.  Originally a gift from France to celebrate our shared national struggles for liberty, the Statue, thanks to Emma's poem, slowly came to shape our hearts, defining us as a nation that welcomes and gives refuge to those who come to our shores.  This title has been selected as a Common Core Text Exemplar (Grades 4-5, Poetry)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Apr 5, 2010
• ISBN: 9780547768953

Linda Glaser

<p>Linda Glaser's grandparents emigrated from eastern Europe in the late 1800's to New York City, where they first saw the huge statue.Also the author of the immigrant novel, BRIDGE TO AMERICA, Ms. Glaser lives in Duluth, MN.</p>

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Reviews for Emma's Poem

[abigailadams26 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This lovely picture-book biography of the nineteenth-century Jewish American poet Emma Lazarus, and her best-remembered work, The New Colossus, whose final lines - "Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, / The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. / Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, / I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" - are indelibly connected to the Statue of Liberty, and to the idea (well, one of them, anyway) of the immigrant in American culture, moved me to tears this morning, as I read it on my morning commute.Opening with Lazarus' comfortable childhood and youth, as the daughter of prosperous New Yorkers, and then moving through her gradual awakening to the realities of poverty and suffering, particularly amongst immigrants (many of them Jewish, like herself), her growing involvement as an educator in the immigrant community, and as an advocate for the less fortunate in the press of the day, the book concludes with her penning of her famous sonnet, as part of an effort to raise money for a base for the Statue of Liberty, and the great fame the poem has won, even down to the present day.Linda Glaser's deceptively calm narrative has an emotional depth to it that will immediately draw the reader into her story - into Emma Lazarus' story. The accompanying watercolor and gouache artwork by Claire A. Nivola is incredibly beautiful, with a somewhat stylized feeling that never detracts from its emotional impact. I'm struggling to express just why it is that this title so moved me... perhaps because, through Lazarus' awakening to the world around her, and her incredible commitment to doing something about the injustices of that world, the reader too feels awakened? In any case, Emma's Poem is just a lovely, lovely book, one I recommend to anyone (teacher, parent, librarian) putting together a lesson on immigration or the Statue of Liberty, and to young readers interested in those topics, or in Emma Lazarus.

[laceyfield · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Summary:This book is about a wealthy woman, Emma, who realized how immigrants struggle. Most of the wealthier families do not pay much attention to the immigrants because they are poor and wear bad clothes. Emma started to make a point to help save the immigrants. She wrote poems to try to get the wealthier families attention, but many didn’t seem to care. Then, she was asked to write a poem to help raise money for the building/parts of the Statue of Liberty. With her choice of the poem, she wrote about the immigrants. She did all she could to help improve life for the immigrants and herself as well.Personal Reflections:I thought this book was really cute and very informative. It was not really relative to me but it was a good book to learn about the background of the Statue of Liberty.Classroom Extensions:1. This book would be great to learn about the Statue of Liberty.2. With all the different diversity of the different people.

[pataustin_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

If you have Lady Liberty in your collection from 2008, you'll have to add Emma's Poem, which also in free verse (as is Lady Liberty) despite being different authors. Wealthy Emma Lazarus -- writer, humanitarian--has had a life of luxury. But when she realizes that poor immigrants have nothing, she worked with them, wrote about them -- and her sonnet "The New Colossus" honors them on the Statue of Liberty.

[barnes08 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Emma’s Poem the Voice of the Statue of Liberty by Linda Glaser is about Emma Lazarus. The book starts by telling about Emma as a little girl. The book tells how she had become a well known writer. One day Emma visited Ward’s Island in the New York Harbor. Emma saw the ragged, tired and sad immigrants. The immigrants were Jews like herself. She then decided she wont to help them. Emma heard of the statue being built in New York Harbor. She was asked to write a poem to raise money for the statue’s pedestal. Emma decided to write about immigrants. Emma poem is now engraved on a plague at the entrance to the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. Today, Emma’s poem is well known.I enjoyed reading this book. I learned things about the Statue of Liberty that I didn’t know. This book is great for older students. The pictures are refreshing. I liked how at the end of the book it talked about Emma Lazarus and told some of the history. At the end of the book it has Emma’s actual poem. The name of the poem is The New Colossus.I would use this book as a read-aloud for upper elementary grades. I would use this book when talking about the Statue of Liberty or immigration. I would also have a grand conversation talking about the book. We would discuss everything from the pictures to why Emma wrote of immigration. I would have this book available for students to read in class some time throughout the year.