The Endless Steppe

Chapters 1-3

Reading Check

1. The garden (Chapter 1)

2. The Russian army (Chapter 1)

3. Electrical engineer (Chapter 3)

Short Answer

1. It is the oldest Jewish center in Eastern Europe. (Chapter 2)

2. Through an act of will—not suicide—she dies in her own home rather than allow them to take her. (Chapter 2)

Chapters 4-6

Reading Check

1. Weed the potato fields (Chapter 4)

2. Haggle (Chapter 5)

3. The bakery (Chapter 6)

Short Answer

1. Gypsum is used to make plaster casts for wounded soldiers. (Chapter 4)

2. Anya transforms vanity into an act of courage by using the luxury items she brought from home to make herself beautiful before going off to her job of drudgery at the flour mill. (Chapter 6)

Chapters 7-10

Reading Check

1. Space (Chapter 7)

2. Goose fat (Chapter 8)

3. Sunflower seeds (Chapter 10)

Short Answer

1. She uses old newspapers for a notebook, writing between the printed lines. (Chapter 7)

2. He and nine other Jewish men gather in the family's hut to sing Kaddish after news comes of his father's death. (Chapter 8)

3. They want him to become a spy and report on the activities of the other Polish people in the village. (Chapter 9)

Chapters 11-15

Reading Check

1. New buildings around the tractor factory (Chapter 11)

2. Onion peels (Chapter 11)

3. A cake of soap (Chapter 14)

Short Answer

1. After seeing a movie starring Durbin, Esther and her friends think of the actress as a superhero. They want to dress like her and act like her. (Chapter 12)

2. He has been ordered to go to a work camp near the front lines of the war. (Chapter 12)

3. She joins a group of children who steal coal that falls from cars onto the train tracks and wood shavings from the lumberyard. (Chapter 13)

4. It is too small. Although Esther had measured her carefully, Marya Nikolayevna gained weight after being measured. (Chapter 15)

Chapters 16-19

Reading Check

1. “Tatyana's Dream” from Eugene Onegin (Chapter 17)

2. “Esther…Esther…Sh'mah Israel” (Chapter 18)

3. To use the pages for cigarette papers (Chapter 19)

Short Answer

1. Uncle Yozia arranges for them to move in with Yosif Isayevich to keep house for him while his wife is away. (Chapter 16)

2. Raisa, the teacher in charge, sends Esther away because she has no shoes. Esther runs home and puts on her mother's oversized slippers so she can participate. (Chapter 17)

3. They are highly qualified. Many of the teachers previously taught in the European universities in Russia. (Chapter 18)

Chapters 20-22

Reading Check

1. Editor of the school's new Russian newspaper (Chapter 20)

2. A gown for the masquerade party (Chapter 20)

3. Sapogy (leather boots) and fufaika (quilted jacket) (Chapter 21)

Short Answer

1. Everyone—deportees, European Russians, Siberiaki—hates them. The people shout insults and hurl stones. (Chapter 21)

2. She wants him to return to Rubtsovsk and live with her family there. (Chapter 21)

3. The Polish people throw stones and scream at them: “Dirty Jews!” (Chapter 22)