WINNER OF 2009 SYDNEY TAYLOR AWARD FOR OLDER READERS

Award winning author Karen Hesse paints a picture of turn of the century New York. Fourteen year old Joseph Michtom immigrated from Russia to Brooklyn with his family where his parents own a candy store. Their lives change dramatically when his mother invents a stuffed teddy bear, brilliantly inspired by a cartoon depicting President Roosevelt declining to shoot a baby bear on a hunting trip. With their growing teddy bear business and newfound wealth, the Michtoms enter the upper middle class achieving the American Dream that they struggled so hard to attain. Now Joseph's life is turned upside down. There is no time for family. No longer is Joseph at leisure to play stickball with his friends. Now he works. And complains. He misses his parents. He wants his life to turn right side up. Karen Hesse presents a story of warmth, sadness, frustration and laughter within one big colorful family in this work of historical fiction.