Children's Reading List: American Girl Rebecca and Lapbook

Posted by My Heart Song

2/8/2012

My daughter has finished reading the book series for the next American Girl - Rebecca from 1914.

Rebecca is from a Jewish family of immigrants from Russia. They live in a cramped apartment in New York and raise money for other extended family members to make the trip to America. My daughter asked some deeper questions about what Jewish people believe after reading these books. She also found it fascinating that "moving pictures" were just being invented and were woven into Rebecca's books. She proudly recognized the name Charlie Chaplin.

As we've done for the previous girls, we worked on a lapbook for Rebecca.
All of the materials we used can be found for free here. Since Rebecca is a newer girl, there aren't templates yet designed for her. We used the generic templates that can be used for any girl. Here's my daughter with the cover of her lapbook - a picture she drew of Rebecca. She included a menorah in the background. Page 1 of the lapbook, with mini-books describing Rebecca's mother, father, father's job, hobbies, house, fashion from 1914, my daughter's favorite book from the series (and why) and what lessons she learned from the books.

Page 2 of the lapbook shows mini-books describing Rebecca's best friend, her hometown, her pet, and 4 fun facts about life in 1914, along with a map highlighting New York (where Rebecca's story takes place).

There are now 3 more girls before my daughter has read all of the American Girl books (for the historical characters) and earned her way to visit the American Girl Store in Chicago. Looks like I should prepare myself that visit to be in March, at the rate she's going.

Moving on to Kit, who lived during the Great Depression.