Words of Welcome

How Emma Lazarus Gave Lady Liberty a Voice (A Picture Book Biography)

From an award-winning picture book team, Words of Welcome is the story of poet and advocate Emma Lazarus, who wrote the famous poem engraved on the Statue of Liberty, and how that statue became a symbol of hope, freedom, and opportunity

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free .

Before her words were engraved on the bronze plaque at the base of the Statue of Liberty, Emma Lazarus was a talented yet underappreciated poet. She was a staunch advocate for the oppressed, especially immigrants and New York Citys newly arrived Jewish community. Discrimination was rampant. Lazarus used her writing to fight for those being persecuted and eventually wrote her most famous poem of belonging, The New Colossus (1883), which welcomes immigrants to their new home in the United States. Every visitor to Ellis