Front cover of a 2017 edition if Molly's Pilgrim.
Moly's Pilgrim is a 48-page children's book first published in 1983. It was written by the American author Barbara Cohen and illustrated by Daniel Mark Duffy.
The story takes place at an unspecified point in the past, probably in the early 20th century. It concerns a Jewish girl from Russia named Molly. To escape anti-Semitic violence, Molly and her parents have come to the United States and settled in the small town of Winter Hill. Molly is unhappy in Winter Hill. She is the only Jewish girl in her class and is well aware that she is different from the other children. A group of other girls bully her because of those differences. When Molly first learns about the American holiday of Thanksgiving, she comes to identify strongly with the Pilgrim Fathers who created it. Her teacher recognizes that connection too, as do her classmates who come to accept her more afterwards.
An Academy Award-winning short film based on Molly's Pilgrim was released in 1985.
Plot of the book[]
The story takes the form of a memoir in which the adult Molly recalls events from her childhood.
Molly and her parents leave Russia after life in their hometown becomes no longer safe for Jews. Cossacks burn down the synagogue and may start burning Jewish people next. The family first settle in New York City but later move to the small town of Winter Hill after Molly's father is offered a better job with better accommodation provided there. Molly is unhappy at her school. There are no other Jewish girls in her class and she is acutely aware of being different from the other children. Some other girls, led by a popular girl named Elisabeth, bully Molly. They mock her because of her small eyes, large nose and difficulties with English. Molly tells her mother that she is being bullied. Her mother offers to go to the school and talk to Miss Stickley, Molly's teacher, about it. Molly is aware that her mother, who barely speaks English and always talks to her daughter in Yiddish, is different from the other children's mothers. Fearing that the situation would get worse if her mother were to go to the school, Molly lies and tells her mother she will talk to her teacher herself.
One day in November, Molly and her classmates read about the Pilgrim Fathers and the first Thanksgiving. Molly enjoys the lesson. It is the first time she has heard of the holiday and its creators. Miss Stickley tells the children that they are going to make a model of the Pilgrim town in Plymouth, Massachusetts. They will make the buildings in school and the people at home. The boys will make Native Americans and the girls will make Pilgrims. Some are assigned to make Pilgrim men and others to make Pilgrim women. Molly has to make a Pilgrim woman.
After school, Molly asks her mother for a clothes peg so that she can do her homework. This confuses her mother and Molly needs to explain that she has to make a Pilgrim doll. Molly's mother does not know what a Pilgrim is. Molly tells her the Pilgrims were people who came to America "from the other side" so that they could have the freedom to worship G-d in their own way, a freedom they did not have at home. Molly's mother says she thinks that sounds like her. She tells Molly that she will make the doll while the girl does the rest of her homework and then goes and plays.
In the morning, Molly sees the doll her mother has made. She thinks that it is beautiful but worries that it does not look like the Pilgrim women in her school book. The doll is dressed in the traditional Russian clothes that her mother wore when she was a girl. Molly's mother explains that the doll represents her because she is a Pilgrim. Like the Pilgrims of old, she crossed the ocean to go to America in search of religious freedom she did not have at home.
In class, Elisabeth taunts Molly for not doing the homework correctly. Miss Stickley thinks Molly failed to understand the assignment, although she thinks the doll is beautiful. Molly explains that the doll depicts her mother because her mother is a Pilgrim who came to America to have freedom to worship in her own way. Miss Stickley recognizes the truth in Molly's words. She says that she will put the doll om her desk as a reminder that Pilgrims are still coming to America. She also tells the children that the Pilgrim Fathers got the idea for Thanksgiving after reading in the Bible about the harvest holiday of Tabernacles, which Molly knows as Sukkoth, a festival celebrated by Jews like Molly and her mother.
Molly's classmates begin to accept her more. Miss Stickley says that she would like to meet Molly's mother and talk to her. Molly reasons that it would do no harm if her mother came to the school since her teacher has invited her. She also comes to the conclusion that, "It takes all kinds of Pilgrims to make a Thanksgiving."
Short film[]
Molly's Pilgrim, a 24-minute live-action American film based on the book, was released in 1985. The adaptation is a largely faithful one, although there are some small but significant differences.
The film takes place in a present-day urban setting. Molly's father, a character who is referred to in the book but does not appear in it, has a prominent role as a loving and supporting parent in the film. The doll, much larger than the one made out of a clothes peg in the book would be, is said to represent Molly herself rather than her mother and is dressed in a costume that Moly used to wear to do traditional Russian dancing. The line, "I think it takes all kinds of Pilgrims to make a Thanksgiving", is spoken by one of Molly's classmates, a boy named Arthur. As in the book, Molly is mocked by other children because of her physical appearance and her imperfect English. They also distrust her because she is Russian. There are no references in the film's dialogue to Molly and her parents being Jewish until the final ten minutes. A box bearing a Star of David. later revealed to be a music box that plays "Hatikvah", does, however appear in Molly's bedroom during the film's opening titles.
Molly's Pilgrim was directed by Jeffrey D. Brown. It stars Sophia Eliazova as Molly, Polina Klimovitskaya as Molly's mother, Albert Makhtsier as Molly's father and Judy Yerby as her unnamed teacher. Barbara Cohen, the author of the book Molly's Pilgrim, appears as a school crossing guard.
The film won the Academy Award for Best Short Subject in 1986.
See also[]
External links[]
- Molly's Pilgrim on GoodReads.
- There is an article about Molly's Pilgrim on Literature Wiki.
- Molly's Pilgrim on IMDb.