Tag Archives: 4-5

Freedom Over Me

Posted on November 29, 2018 by | Comments Off on Freedom Over Me

Title: Freedom Over Me

Author(s): Ashley Bryan

Illustrator/Photographer: Ashley Bryan

Publisher and Year: Antheneum Books for Young Readers 2016

Number of pages: 44

Tags/Themes: Allison Henry, Culture, Diversity, Emotion, Family, Historical Fiction, Picture Book, Poetry, 2-3, 4-5, Social Science

Genre: Historical Fiction

Descriptive Annotation:  Freedom Over Me is the story of eleven slaves. It provided a narrative of each of the slaves’ duties on the plantation and then describes their inner thoughts while they are working. In the back of the book there is an Author’s Note that explains the history behind this story. The author collected many documents relating to slavery, including an appraisement form for an estate. This form listed eleven slaves with their name and price. The author wanted to craft these names and prices into people to show that slaves were humans, too. This book is written in free verse poetry and the illustrations are done in pen, ink, watercolor, and copies of historical documents.

Classroom Application: This book could be used in a unit on slavery. It provides a different perspective that shows a little bit of the slaves’ side of the story. This text could be used to show students how slaves were treated like animals when they were sold. The author includes the appraisal form in the book and it shows the slaves’ names next to cattle and other farm animals.

Linguistic and Cultural Diversity Analysis: The pages that include the slaves’ thoughts provide a brief description of what their lives were like in Africa before they were taken. It includes mentions of African art, history, and music and how those things are passed down through generations. Mulvina, the oldest slave, says, “Years of driven labor have not driven the ancestral thoughts out of me. My memory of teaching-surrounded by children, singing songs of our people, the stories of our history-lives always within me.” Betty, a middle ages woman says, “We remember our African cultures, our traditions, our craftsmanship. Within us lives this knowledge, this undefeated pride.” This book could be used in the classroom by having the students compare this story to a story about slavery from the perspective of the owner. There would be a discussion on power and how perspectives shape our idea of the world around us.

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My Heart is on the Ground: The Diary of Nannie Little Rose, a Sioux Girl

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Title: My Heart is on the Ground: The Diary of Nannie Little Rose, a Sioux Girl (Dear America series)

Author(s): Ann Rinaldi

Illustrator/Photographer: N/A

Publisher and Year: Scholastic Inc. 1999

Number of pages: 171

Tags/Themes: Allison Henry, Culture, Diversity, Chapter Book, Emotion, Historical Fiction, 4-5, Social Science

Genre: Historical Fiction

Descriptive Annotation: My Heart is on the Ground is written in diary format. At the end of the book is a section on the events happening in the United States during 1880, the year that the book takes place. There is also a section of pictures, a note about the author, and a list of the other books in the Dear America series. My Heart is on the Ground is the story of Little Rose, a Sioux girl who gets sent to a school set up by white people to force Native American children to forget their heritage and become the white people’s idea of a perfect citizen. Little Rose struggles to remember where she comes from while also making her teachers proud.

Classroom Application: This book could be used in a series of lessons on Native Americans. It shows what these children went through in an age appropriate way. It can also be used during a lesson on writing styles, as an example of epistolary writing. The students could read this book, put themselves in the position of a child in any point in history, and then write a range of diary entries.

Linguistic and Cultural Diversity Analysis: My Heart is on the Ground paints an accurate picture of the life of a Native American child at an Indian School. This book could be used to start a conversation on appropriate treatment of groups, dominant culture, and/or Native American culture. Little Rose talks about many aspects of her home culture quite often in the book. One instance of the cultural differences is shown when one of Little Rose’s peers dies from a disease. “I know some of the boys and girls wanted to tear their garments, cut their hair, cover themselves with mud, and slash at their arms because the Death Angel took Horace. But we were made to stand in citizens’ clothing, clean and quiet” (44). This book could also be used to build confidence in student’s writing skills. As Little Rose learns the English language, she makes many mistakes in her writing. If students read passages like, “The teachers had a new bed bring brought to our room” (69), they can recognize that it is ok to make mistakes in their writing.

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El Deafo

Posted on November 29, 2018 by | Comments Off on El Deafo

Title: El Deafo

Author(s ): Cece Bell

Illustrator/Photographer: Cece Bell

Publisher and Year: Amulet Books, 2014

Number of pages: 233

Tags/Themes: Allison Henry, Animals, Award Book, Fiction, 4-5, 6-8, Family, Graphic Novel

Genre: Realistic Fiction

Descriptive Annotation: El Deafo is the story of a young girl, Cece, navigating elementary school and all that entails, while deaf. After contracting meningitis at age 4, Cece loses all ability to hear. She receives hearing aids and a Phonic Ear to use in school. In order to cope with being different, Cece creates an alter-ego, El Deafo. This book is a graphic novel, therefore there are many illustrations in the text. Students would need to have background knowledge in basic school situations, a middle to upper elementary level vocabulary, and the knowledge of how to read a graphic novel.

Classroom Application: I would use this text to address the Social Emotional Learning Standards for late elementary. This book could be used for Learning Standards 1.A., 2.A., 2.B.2.b., 2.C., and 2.D. These standards refer to explaining emotions, identifying social clues and describing them, identifying differences and overcoming them, and cooperating with friends and other groups. All of these topics are addressed in El Deafo, where the situations are presented, Cece chooses a course of action, and then the consequences are shown.

Linguistic and Cultural Diversity Analysis: This book is about a child that is deaf. This story presents many situations that students that are deaf and their classmates could find themselves in. This book could be used to start a discussion about treatment of peers that may be different from themselves. This book was published in 2014, therefore it is up to date in the vocabulary that it uses to describe the situations and the treatments used to assist the student that is deaf. This book could be introduced by explaining to the students that sometimes, people have different abilities. It could also be explained that, just because someone may have different abilities, does not mean that they are in need of assistance. It can be used to start a discussion on appropriate treatment of peers, addressing both bullying and trying to be too helpful. On page 34, Cece is teased by a friend for mishearing a question. Her friend, Emma, says, “No-not supper-summer! Summmmmm-mmmmmer! Supper! HEE HEE!” This part of the story focuses on Cece being teased by her peers and how see feels when this happens. Later in the story, Cece makes a friend that is too helpful. In response to Ginny, her friend, saying, “CEE-CEE. DOO YOO WANT MYYY PEEA-NUT BUTT-ER SAND-WICH?”, Cece thinks, “I really, really like Ginny. She’s funny. She’s weird. We love all the same things. So what’s the problem? It’s the wat she talks to me… “(67).

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Picturing America: Thomas Cole and the Birth of American Art

Posted on November 29, 2018 by | Comments Off on Picturing America: Thomas Cole and the Birth of American Art

 Author(s)/Illustrator/Photographer: Hudson Talbott

 Publisher and Year Number of pages: Nancy Paulsen Books, 2018, 31 pages.

Genre: Nonfiction

Descriptive Annotation: The cover features an artistic rendering of Thomas Cole at work on one of his superb paintings of the Catskill Mountains in Upstate New York. The depiction demonstrates the way the sun sets at night on those majestic mountains. The artist who is pictured made the American art scene a respected one on the international stage, and his pieces are as well-known today as any Monet or Picasso. As for the book itself, it is a brilliant storybook that involves the engrossing story of a young English boy, Thomas Cole, who is forced to flee his homeland as a result of the ongoing Industrial Revolution there (late 1700s-mid to late 1800s). Thomas, our protagonist, is a boy who is used to his beautiful English countryside home life with his mother, father, brother Sami, seven sisters, and his grandpa Jed. Family life for him is consistent and comfortable. However, as the author notes, “Thomas’s father had to close his workshop because he could not make goods as cheaply as the big factories” (Talbott, p. 5). England is the only home he’s ever known, and when the Industrial Revolution comes to the village, he and his family must flee the land they love so much to make it in the American wilderness by boat from Europe. The family ends up in Steubenville, Pennsylvania, leaving four of Thomas’s seven sisters behind in the Old World, as the family only had money for the three sisters and the Cole parents to take a stagecoach. Thomas follows them on foot, and befriends a travelling portrait painter upon his arrival and learns how to paint. His passion takes off, and soon he is the toast of the worlds both New and Old, inspired by journeying up and down the Hudson River and funded by his first patron, a Mr. Thomas Bruen. It would be beneficial for the reader to learn why and how Cole’s career got started; the additional information, plus the background knowledge provided in the text, would help the reader to enjoy this story better. The language is pretty simple, but also profound in its own way when describing the devastating impact of industrialization on ordinary Americans and Englishmen, particularly Thomas and his family.

Classroom Application: It is an ideal text to teach lessons on the aftereffects of industrialization, since too often the media and history books solely focus on the big incidents that occur with the process of industrialization itself instead of the human impact, and its unsuitability for the long run. Good stewardship of the environment, and being able to appreciate beauty via subtle art as Thomas Cole exhibited in his paintings is the lesson I learned from this book. The author subtly demonstrates that treating your environment with dignity and respect results in a better world, rather than the outright sabotage through rapid buildup and environmental issues that resulted from the First Industrial Revolution (1760-1840). The best avenue to pursue is to educate others as Cole did, and help save “…the environment while there (is)…still time” (Talbott, p. 30). How the children best learn this lesson, of course, would be up to the teacher. The passion shown by the main character, Thomas Cole, in pursuing his goals of making a new, truly American art form and saving the environment from then encroachment of machines is certainly a worthy trait for teaching purposes, and could be tied into the environmental protection movement of the 1960s-present in a history classroom setting. Students could be taught laws or US Supreme Court decisions that allow discrimination against the environment, or in the past discriminated against it, and how to go about changing them.

Linguistic and Cultural Diversity Analysis: The book is set in England and Upstate New York, and its cultural influences will be very familiar to many readers in Illinois. Instead, focus on the unique American art schools formed over the 2 centuries we have been a united, independent country and expound on them to a large extent. This would also be great for an art course, as the artists who followed Cole such as Asher Durand and Frederic Church help reflect the artistic traditions of the USA since our independence in 1776: “It was the first art movement that was truly born in America” (Talbott, p. 30). Even though they weren’t part of the group that originally settled the area thousands of years ago, Cole and his devotees started to capture the natural beauty of the Eastern United States before a large portion of it was lost to the forces that built up the factories out East, making the region into what it is today.

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Bring me some apples and I’ll make you a pie: a story about Edna Lewis

Posted on November 28, 2018 by | Comments Off on Bring me some apples and I’ll make you a pie: a story about Edna Lewis

Author(s), Illustrator/Photographer: by Robbin Gourley.

Publisher and Year Number of pages: Clarion Books, 2009, 45 Pages.

Genre: Historical Fiction and Biography.

Descriptive Annotation: The cover features the protagonist, Edna Lewis, brandishing an apple of the sort used by the future chef at Freetown, Virginia. Watercolors depict the sons and daughters of former slaves in their community, gathering crops and making a living free from the bulk of anti-black persecution of their brethren further south under the post-Civil War Jim Crow laws. The book covers the harvest of crops, which are baked into delicious recipes that can be found at the back of the book, and the process of getting them from field to fork.  Breaking the mold of standard imagery of the era in our collective mindset, all of the workers in Freetown live relatively pleasant lives, seemingly unburdened by segregation due to the town being formed by and for African-Americans, and not a single white person in sight for the entirety of the text. Prior knowledge of what the community of Freetown was, and perhaps research on Edna Lewis’s long cooking career could help further classroom discussions immensely.

Classroom Application: In this picture book, the characters are all assigned different tasks in farming the field, which would be ideal for some role-play for those children who live in suburban and urban settings who have never experienced rural life and its trappings before. Accompanied by a field trip to a local farm (especially in the Bloomington-Normal area) would be an excellent idea and a way to broaden one’s knowledge of Illinois’s agricultural traditions, supplemented by the Virginian ones seen in the book. I certainly never heard pecans falling from the sky during harvest season: “The leaves are falling, and so are the nuts. Ping-ping-ping. Pecan and walnuts fall on the rooftop. The family fills baskets full of them” (Gourley, p. 34).

Linguistic and Cultural Diversity Analysis: Gourley covers the legacy of slavery, and Jim Crow, in a way that can easily be remembered, and notes the historical significance of Freetown at the last page of text before the recipes come in: “Edna Lewis was born in 1916, in Freetown, Virginia, a community founded by her grandfather and two other emancipated slaves” (Gourley, p. 40). The author speaks the dreams of Edna to become a famous chef towards the end of the book, too: “How about we make a summer pudding or a cobbler? Or just have a bowlful of berries with sugar and cream?” (Gourley, p. 19). Such a bevy of ideas for making food with the berries are indicative of a creative young mind, and it is crucial that teachers encourage that kind of pluck and ingenuity so that they can make the next generation of innovators like Edna Lewis reach new heights of greatness.

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Maus

Posted on November 28, 2018 by | Comments Off on Maus

Author(s), Illustrator/Photographer: Art Spiegelman

Publisher and Year Number of pages: Pantheon Books, 1991, 296 Pages.

Genre: Fiction, Autobiography, Memoir, History and Biography.

Descriptive Annotation: The cover features two Polish Jews (Spiegelman and his father) cowering under the shadow of a giant swastika, modified by the imposition of a German-stylized cat’s head emblem. This is a combination of both standard Holocaust imagery and the use of animals as metaphors, which can be seen for the entirety of the graphic novel. Maus is the heartbreaking story of a Polish-American man and his aging father’s experiences in the Holocaust as a Polish Jew, and the continued regret of Spiegelman “using” the death of six million Jews to sell his book to some extent in his mind. As the Holocaust is described to him via his father, Spiegelman also continues to express guilt that didn’t talk to his father more about his experiences on a frequent basis when he had the opportunity to do so when the former was alive. The whole of his father’s trials, from growing up in moderately anti-Semitic Poland to the German invasion in 1939 and the ways in which the population react (or don’t react) to the actions the Nazi regime takes against the Jewish population, are covered in the book. Prior knowledge of what the Holocaust was, and perhaps reading of some more traditional fare on the era such as The Diary of Anne Frank, would certainly be useful in the scenario of students reading this novel in the classroom.

Classroom Application: In this graphic novel, the characters are all played by different animal personas based on nationality, which would be ideal for some upper-level social studies settings. For instance, the Nazis/Germans are cats, the Jews are mice, Americans are dogs, and the French are frogs. The metaphors purposefully don’t work for large portions of the story, i.e. when a mouse is a veteran of World War I for Germany and he flickers back and forth between being a mouse and a cat. This is a teachable moment, since it’s Spiegelman’s way of saying that race and racism, or discrimination of any kind, is very arbitrary because the categories we apply really don’t hold water when held up to scrutiny, or when you consider that people can belong to more than one category.

Linguistic and Cultural Diversity Analysis: Spiegelman covers the different ways in which the Holocaust is remembered, and notes that when he published the novel, nobody had used a comic book format to do so before: “I’m not talking about YOUR book now, but look at how many books have already been written about the Holocaust. What’s the point? People haven’t changed…” (Spiegelman, p. 34). Exasperation with people not being able to get the message with traditional mediums of literature drove Spiegelman to write this book, and that is why 27 years later, this is still a widely taught and used piece of work, both in the US and Germany, the latter of which had to be lobbied to permit the public sale of this book due to the display of the swastika being an illegal offense in that country. Another source of controversy is that the animal chosen to represent the Poles was a pig, since that is a common stereotype of people from Poland and from Eastern Europe in general, and the Germans are universally seen as a brutalizing force in the novel as well. The author speaks through one of his characters as unrepentant on the latter, though, stating “Let the Germans have a little what they did to the Jews” (Spiegelman, p. 226). Such an attitude may seem severe to certain readers, but in the context of the experience of Spiegelman’s family and millions of others, it is understandable that they are biased against their erstwhile oppressors and architects of the genocide.

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Hoot

Posted on November 28, 2018 by | Comments Off on Hoot

Author(s) Illustrator/Photographer: Carl Hiaasen

 Publisher and Year Number of pages: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002, 292 pages.

Genre: Realistic Fiction

Descriptive Annotation: The cover features a simple artistic rendering of a burrowing owl’s white eyes on a sky-blue background, very similar to other minimalist books of Carl Hiaasen’s that feature similar cover artwork. As for the book itself, it involves the engrossing story of Roy Eberhardt, a boy who is used to being a new kid. Florida isn’t the first state he’s lived in, but probably the most interesting place he’s ever been. We first meet Roy with his face being pressed against the window of his school bus by Dana Matheson, the local bully.  While dealing with Dana, Roy meets a boy named Mullet Fingers and learns of a sinister plot involving a pancake house called Mother Paula’s, which is planned to be built on the site of an owl rookery.   Roy used to hate Florida and mope about going back to Montana, but now he doesn’t think it’s so boring after all. Roy and Beatrice, his crush at school, have to decide whether or not to help protest for owls’ rights with Mullet Fingers by sabotaging the Mother Paula’s site, which is not an easy choice to make since he is already in trouble at school for ditching class to chase Mullet Fingers. Luckily for the reader, there isn’t much background knowledge needed to enjoy this story-all they need do is get comfortable in their favorite spot and get to enjoying it. The language is pretty simple but also profound in its own way and could be used for a variety of grade levels due to a mass appeal for readers with many different tastes.

Classroom Application: Since the book makes the protection of the environment at all costs from those who would besmirch or defile it an enormous priority, it’s an ideal text to teach lessons on sustainability and good stewardship of the Earth. The author subtly demonstrates that outright militancy and sabotage towards polluters isn’t the best avenue to pursue, and how the children best learn this lesson would be up to the teacher. The passion shown by the main characters in pursuing their goal of environmental preservation is certainly a trait for teaching purposes. One possible lesson after reading the book would be to review current events and find a story that gets the class excited about environmentalism. Students would also do well to recognize, as Roy does, that “Just because something is legal doesn’t automatically make it right” (Hiaasen, p. 180), and think about laws that exist in this country that may not necessarily have been just or good for every American, and how to go about changing them.

Linguistic and Cultural Diversity Analysis: Since the book is set in South Florida, the unique cultural blend formed in that region over the centuries is described to a large extent and would be great for a social studies-type course. The traditions of the Seminole peoples that originally settled the area thousands of years ago are ever-present. Hiaasen explains them to the reader through the character of Mullet Fingers, who is a barefoot young man that ran away from a “special” (read: Indian re-Education) school in Mobile, AL to come and protect the swamp that holds the owls from bulldozers that are coming to build a pancake house on their homes. The Seminole Nation has always been committed to maintaining and supporting the bounties and remaining in sync with those bounties, hence the fierce devotion Mullet Fingers has to the cause: “‘You bury those birds,’ Mullet Fingers said, ‘you gotta bury me, too.” (pg. 267). His zeal convinces Roy to stand up to the corporations as well, and the unity of both boys from drastically different backgrounds is a message that can resonate with many students if taught correctly. Goodness in oneself and others is also a key component in the book, as can be seen in Roy’s conversations with another character on Mullet Fingers: “‘Eberhardt, why do you care about this kid?’ It was a good question, and Roy wasn’t certain he could put the answer into words. there was something about the look on the boy’s face . . . something urgent and determined and unforgettable” (Hiaasen, pp. 74-75). That kind of lesson never gets old, no matter what sort of class you are teaching.

 

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Kate Shelley: Bound for Legend

Posted on November 28, 2018 by | Comments Off on Kate Shelley: Bound for Legend

Author/Illustrator: Robert D. San Souci, Max Ginsburg

Publisher and Year Number of pages: Dial Books for Young Readers, 1995, 30 pages.

Genre: Nonfiction

Descriptive Annotation: The cover features a detailed artistic rendering of a girl with a brown coat, tan straw hat, and an orange, glowing oil lamp typical of the mid-to-late 1800s when the book is set. The lush paintings of Iowa featured inside the book continue for the whole of the narrative, and the results are pleasing to both the historian in me for their accuracy and to my inner child due to their exciting events that really drew me in. As for the text itself, it involves the story of Kate Shelley who manages to warn another train hurtling down the tracks to her farm that there has been a wreck at her family’s property and that they need to stop in order to avoid an accident. She is an ordinary kid that just happens to have been in the right place at the right time and is eager to help in any way she can to prevent a preventable tragedy. When Kate sets off on her journey to stop the second accident, she is not helped by anybody. Despite that, she manages to locate some survivors from the wreck, and crawl over the slippery, 700-foot-high railroad bridge that leads to the other incoming train. She does so with full knowledge of the danger that awaits her: “A misstep would send me down below the ties into the flood that was boiling below. I got down on my hands and knees, carrying my useless lantern and guiding myself by the stretch of rail” (Souci, p. 18-19). Eventually, Kate makes it to the station and warns the men inside of the accident waiting to happen, collapsing soon afterward from the exhaustion her ordeal: “Much later she would learn that the train had been halted forty miles to the west, at the edge of the storm. The passengers were safe” (Souci, p. 22). Out in the cold, there are still railroad workers in trouble, and Kate gets up from her resting spot and goes out with the men from the station to help save their lives. Lucky for her and them, the rain and wind that had been blowing that whole time and causing all the trouble stops. This allows a safe rescue of the workers and for Kate to get some real rest, which lasts for a long while until she can get her strength back up: “It was nearly three months before Kate’s strength came back. During this time as she lay in bed, she was greeted by the trains that blew their whistles when they passed the Shelley farmhouse” (Souci, p. 27). She takes this and many other commendations for her bravery in stride, not yet realizing the full power of her actions in a time of need until much later in life. The father of Kate is very proud of his daughter, as is the state of Iowa and most of the country at the time.

Classroom Application: Since the book makes the idea of selfless sacrifice for others and mutual respect of all people an enormous priority, it’s an ideal text to teach lessons on being decent to one another and how to step up when the situation demands one do so. The author/illustrator also demonstrate that direct action towards a problem that needs solving is best, and always good if pursued correctly; one must work hard and think creatively in order to accomplish a “deed bound for legend” (Souci, p. 1). One possible lesson after reading the book would be to tie it into Pay It Forward campaigns, and then also review the classroom bullying standards and see if they need to be revised in order to be more selfless. Students would also do well to recognize, as Kate does, that while actions are important, the intent is what really saves the day.

Linguistic and Cultural Diversity Analysis: The book is set in Iowa, but not in the present-day that we are necessarily used to. There isn’t much of a unique cultural blend of the North American continent in those days, but the differences from our modern-day society come through in the names and clothing of the characters, and could be used to great effect to teach about the historical and present significance of the railroad industry in any history classroom, regardless of grade level. Souci does a great job explaining all this, and his words should definitely be heeded when it comes time to plan your lessons.

 

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