Tag Archives: Graham Dano

A Kids’ Guide to the American Revolution

Posted on December 8, 2018 by | Comments Off on A Kids’ Guide to the American Revolution

Author(s), Illustrator/Photographer: Kathleen Krull; illustrated by Anna Divito.

Publisher and Year/Number of pages: HarperCollins Children’s Books, 2018, 207 Pages.

Tags/Themes: Graham, New Nation, Declaration of Independence, Thirteen Colonies, Revolutionary War, Boston Tea Party, Washington, George, and Dano.

Genre: Nonfiction, Chapter Book.

Descriptive Annotation: The cover features a watercolor drawing of George Washington, kitted out in a traditional tricorn and blue frock coat, cradling a US flag (of the Thirteen Colonies) and superimposed over the Declaration of Independence. Also included is a red, white and blue color scheme in the title and author’s name as well, emphasizing the colors that the new nation of America rallied to in the heady days of 1776. This is a combination of both standard unifying American imagery used by our country since its independence, and the founding document of our initial independence being put in a position of prominence, which can be seen for the entirety of the novel.

A Kids’ Guide to the American Revolution is the beginning story of our country, which was a group of men who decided that enough British domination was enough, and despite their many differences, it made sense for them to band together and declare to the world the birth of a new nation, and, in doing so, made a document that changed the world: “It spelled out the reasons why the colonists had to rebel against the mother country and begin to govern themselves. It’s not exaggerating things to say that the Declaration launched America” (Krull, p. 7). As the book continues, it is evident that this American story as portrayed in this novel is the complex, conflicted one as it was in real life, mostly due to its older targeted audience. Also important is that this version of the American tale does have plenty of heart as well, and indeed makes the boosting of morale that George Washington did throughout the war for his troops in the face of difficult odds a key point of focus for the reader: “With these victories he wasn’t just scoring points. He was boosting troop morale and attracting much-needed recruits. Washington was doing more than any other single person to keep the flame of the American Revolution alive” (Krull, p. 139).  The whole of the story is about the acceptance of revolutionary and Enlightenment ideals that posed a serious threat to the British governing order in the Declaration of Independence, and how the war was won based on those ideals even if they weren’t always practiced by all of the Founding Fathers at all times. All Americans of every age group, not just students, should read this book as well, because the author does an evenhanded job of assessing the reality of the Revolution for a book that was designed for children, and the lessons within would certainly be useful for students reading this novel in the primary school classroom.

Classroom Application: In the book A Kids’ Guide to the American Revolution, the characters are all real-life figures from the Revolution, from the top (George Washington, King George III) to the lesser-known heroes of the war, such as a man named Swamp Fox (who was in real life called Francis Marion), who had fought in the French and Indian War: “While battling-and almost losing to the Cherokee Indians, he admired how the Cherokee turned the swampy backwoods to their advantage, hiding until just the right moment for an ambush” (Krull, p. 157).  This demonstrates how people take some of the best ideas from those with whom they may have clashed with before, and that competition can later turn into cooperation, as it did when “Marion’s Men” joined forces with their erstwhile indigenous foes to take down British forces in South Carolina during the Revolutionary War, using those same tactics. This is a teachable moment, since it’s Krull’s way of saying that America was built not on lasting enmity towards one’s foes, but treating them as friends once the current issue at hand has been resolved-just as Britain became a great ally in World Wars I and II, and how Germany and Japan are close allies with us to this day as well after we defeated them in the Second World War as well. In short, we need to embrace the lessons learned of the Revolution and strive towards a world with less enmity and lingering resentment in any way possible. This book is an excellent primer on how to do just that by looking at examples from our primary history way back in the 1770s.

Linguistic and Cultural Diversity Analysis: Krull covers the interactions between American and Brits, colonizers and the colonized, slave and freedman, and does so in a way that doesn’t gloss over the real pain that has occurred in our past through many faults of our own. The end of the war didn’t solve the issue of slavery in the slightest-it exacerbated the problem in many ways, as Krull acknowledges: “The institution of slavery continued to be practiced in the original thirteen colonies. Within days of the war’s end, plantation owners were paying soldiers to locate runaway slaves living in the surrounding woods” (Krull, p. 189). This is necessary to do, as many past versions of our founding have glossed over the often-sad realities that plagued our nation for generations and are still not truly solved. The author’s motivation was to do right by the lives of those who were historically ignored in our textbooks, and to do so in an engaging way that is not misguided or skewered to any certain degree: “Treaties  made with the British prior to the war were ignored by the Americans, and years of bloody conflict and expansion destroyed some tribes” (Krull, p. 193). On those pages which cover the aftermath of the war, a nation was born divided between those who had and who had not, and recognizing that not all was peaches and cream is an important step in the telling of American historiography to young readers. In the context of the age group that is reading this book, it is understandable that it is included to help eliminate false truths. 

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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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Skin Again

Posted on November 28, 2018 by | Comments Off on Skin Again

Author(s), Illustrator/Photographer: bell hooks; illustrated by Chris Raschka.

Publisher and Year/Number of pages: Disney-Jump at the Sun Books, 2004, 30 Pages.

Genre: Fiction, Picture Book.

Descriptive Annotation: The cover features two pastel drawings of children’s hands (one white and one black) clasping each other over the image of a patchwork quilt of skin colors. Also included is a heart-shaped icon on the quilt itself, and all of these are shown in pastel colors. This is a combination of both standard unifying imagery used by mankind for millennia, and the use of children’s hands as innocent figures who don’t notice superficial man-made differences, which can be seen for the entirety of the picture book .

Skin Again is the heartwarming story of a group of kids getting along famously despite their exterior differences, as they continually are told by the narrator, bell hooks, that “The skin I’m in is just a covering. It cannot tell my story” (hooks, pgs. 2-4). As the story goes on, it is evident that while this story is short on words due to its targeted young audience, it has plenty of heart, and indeed makes looking inside others’ hearts a key point of focus for the reader: “If you want to know who I am you have got to come inside” (hooks, p. 14).  The whole of the story is about acceptance and loving others no matter what they may look like, and realizing that others are always coming from different places in their lives (and in the world) from you. Growing up in a predominantly white and Asian suburb of Chicago, Palatine, I wish I had had more books like this one to read, as they might have helped ease some of the tensions that arose between the northern and southern halves of the town based on race and class. Others should have read this as well, because even one person reading the book could have made a difference. Absorbing and understanding the messages described in this story would foster better understanding in any community, and seeing such harmonious relations between different races would be a useful antidote to our current racially-charged era. These lessons would certainly be useful for students reading this novel in the primary school classroom.

Classroom Application: In the book Skin Again, the characters are children of different races, based on the makeup of our nation, which would be ideal for instructing students from less racially or ethnically diverse communities. Different people from different settings are exposed to different realities on a daily basis, and that is more or less the theme that the book conveys. For instance, the last line of the book sums it up nicely: “For we are all inside made up of real history, real dreams, and the stuff of all we hope for when we can be real together on the inside” (hooks, pgs. 25-29).  This demonstrates how people should simply be authentic with each other as well, as authenticity is key in forming long-term relationships. This is a teachable moment, since it’s hook’s way of saying that race and racism, or discrimination of any kind, is arbitrary. It’s not only bad for the human race to think this way-it can be fatal, as we saw at Charlottesville last year. In short, we need less racism in the world, and this book here offers a way to start the anti-racist process at an impressionable age.

Linguistic and Cultural Diversity Analysis: hooks covers the interactions between children of different skin colors in a unique and innovative way, making sure to include culturally sensitive clothes and hair for the children of each race without overdoing it in the story. Not many people have used a picturebook format to do so before, or in this manner that acknowledges the categories of race without letting them get in the way of harmony between disparate peoples: “The skin I’m in looks good to me. It will let you know one small way to trace my identity” (hooks, pgs. 11-12). This is necessarily true- the author’s motivation was to do exactly this when they wrote the text. Exasperation with people not being able to get this message with traditional mediums of literature likely drove bell hooks to write this book, and that is why 14 years later, this is still an excellent (but still largely singular of its type) piece of work.  Another important message in this picture book is that the idea of forming perceptions based on race is misguided and skewered to a certain degree: “You can find all about me-coming close and letting go of who you might think I am” (hooks, pgs. 19-20). On those pages, a young black and young white boy are both pointing at one another from opposite pages, which is a metaphor for the pointing of fingers that happens all too much in today’s world. Such a metaphor may seem blatant and unnecessary to certain readers, but in the context of the age group that is reading this book, it is understandable that it is included to help eliminate biases at a tender age.

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Muktar and the Camels

Posted on November 28, 2018 by | Comments Off on Muktar and the Camels

Author(s)/ Illustrator/Photographer: Janet Graber, Scott Mack

 Publisher and Year Number of pages: Henry Holt and Company, 2009, 29 pages.

Genre: Fiction

Descriptive Annotation: The cover features an artistic rendering of the protagonist, Muktar, with a camel, done in some lovely shades of watercolors that are throughout the book. There is a brown camel on a navy-blue background, and the shirt Muktar is wearing is a similar shade of blue, perhaps leading the reader to infer that Muktar himself is a fixture of the natural world as well, not disturbing the equilibrium that Mother Nature has set. As for the book itself, it involves the engrossing story of Muktar, a Somalian refugee who has found a refuge in Kenya but still misses his homeland and the tending of camels he used to do there. Muktar gets his chance to take up his old passion when a traveling librarian, Mr. Mohamed enters the refugee camp in Kenya in which he resides. Mr. Mohamed reached the town the camp is a part of, Garissa, by camel back, and soon Muktar’s troubles are alleviated somewhat by the presence of the three camels-a new, dynamic trio of mammalian friends. The teacher of the school Muktar attends, Mr. Hassan, always called him lazy and shiftless before in the classroom, but stops doing so now that he sees the young man’s ability to take care of Mr. Mohamed’s camels so well. Luckily for the reader, despite the complex geopolitical situation in East Africa, the story contains universal themes -feeling like an outsider, trying to fit in when in a new place, and getting a true sense of belonging in unfamiliar locales. This is accompanied by the equally universal themes of those three bad things hanging over your head until there is an activity or valve to release the feelings of loneliness and isolation that can easily plague even the most levelheaded person. There is some background information provided at the end to help the precocious reader truly enjoy this story as well learn about the turmoil Somalia has gone through since 1993, and how it has exacerbated the flow of refugees out of the nearly lawless country.

Classroom Application: A central theme is the acceptance of others despite their differences, and the description of world events make this an ideal text to teach those lessons to students. The author and illustrator demonstrate that stigmatization isn’t the best avenue to pursue when new or different people enter your community, and how the children best learn this lesson would be up to the teacher. The passion shown by the main character in pursuing his goal of camel tending and acceptance from his peers in the camp (and Kenyans in general) is certainly a good lesson for teaching purposes. One possible lesson after reading the book would be to follow the news coming out of two current conflicts-Syria as mentioned in the Stepping Stones review, and Yemen-or even Somalia, which is still run by a weak government, and tie that into classroom curriculum. Students will also hopefully recognize, as Mr. Hassan does at the end of the story about Muktar, that we all have a purpose on this Earth, and at some point, we all need a person to “take care of the…ornery beasts” (Graber, p. 25) in our lives.

Linguistic and Cultural Diversity Analysis: The book’s setting is along the Kenyan-Somalian border, and the unique cultural blend formed in that region in recent years due to the combination of cultures from refugee movements is depicted and would be great material for a social studies-type course. The traditions of the Somali peoples that originally only stayed in Somalia have dispersed everywhere from Nairobi to Minneapolis, and are now present in the fabric of each city’s social structure. Graber explains this concept to the reader through the character of Muktar, who is an orphaned young man that ran away from a war-torn country with his nomadic family. Tragically, he was the only one who made it out alive, and his “…mother and father rest in graves beneath piles of stones” (Graber, p. 6). The Somali people from Muktar’s region of the country have always been committed to maintaining and supporting their camel herds, and Muktar’s father hammered that lesson home whenever he could: “Camels first. Always camels first. Camels are treasure” (Graber, p. 5). His zeal that he got from his late parents to take care of these animals convinces Mr. Mohamed to take him on his travels across the continent, and Mr. Hassan allows it when he sees the boy so happy about caring for the animals rather than depressed about his situation.

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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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We’re all wonders

Posted on November 28, 2018 by | Comments Off on We’re all wonders

Author(s) Illustrator/Photographer: written and illustrated by R.J. Palacio

Publisher and Year Number of pages: Alfred A. Knopf, 2017, 29 pages.

Genre: Realistic Fiction

Descriptive Annotation: The cover features a simple artistic rendering of a boy with a facial deformity inside a giant white astronaut’s helmet, very similar to the cover artwork of another famous book by R.J. Palacio, Wonder, which features similar cover artwork in a less elaborate design. The lush sketches featured on the cover continue for the whole of the book, and the results are pleasing to both the eye and the heart. As for the book itself, it involves the story of Auggie Wonder, the protagonist of Wonder, who is used to being an ordinary kid that just happens to have an extraordinary face, and a lovable dog named Daisy. Whenever Auggie is sad about how he is not the same as other kids at his school, he is reminded by his family of his true potential: “My mom says I’m unique. She says I’m a wonder. My dog, Daisy, agrees!” (Palacio, p. 10). Eventually, despite this encouragement, Auggie has to decide whether or not to face the bullies who say cruel things about his condition face to face, or take a break from it all. Auggie goes with door number two: “It hurts my feelings. It hurts Daisy’s feelings, too. When that happens, I put on my helmet. I put Daisy’s helmet on, too. And then we blast off!” (Palacio, pgs. 14-18). Out in space, Auggie gets a much better perspective of how big the world is, and sees that “Earth is big enough for all kinds of people” (Palacio, p. 24). He takes this knowledge back down to his fellow kids, and they start to realize that they, too, are all wonders in their own special ways and should treat another with care and respect. No background knowledge is necessary to enjoy this book, but leafing through this wholesome tome may spark an interest in the full novel to be read, which is never a bad flame for an educator to spark.

Classroom Application: Since the book makes the mutual respect of all an enormous priority by depicting kids of completely different backgrounds on the playground and in its text, it’s an ideal text to teach lessons on being decent to one another and not bullying. The author/illustrator also demonstrates that sometimes it is right and just to withdraw from a situation to decompress and take stock. Direct action towards bullies is never good if pursued in anger; one must “look with kindness and…always find wonder” (Palacio, p. 29). One possible lesson after reading the book would be to tie it into school anti-bullying campaigns, and then also review the classroom bullying standards and see if they need to be revised in any way, shape or form. Students would also do well to recognize, as Auggie does, that minds can be changed, and perceptions altered, and how to best go about changing them is always dependent on the situation.

Linguistic and Cultural Diversity Analysis: The book is diversely cast; on page 8, children of every race and faith are depicted with a high degree of accuracy and tact. The unique cultural blend of each school, therefore, can easily fit into the framework of the picture book and be used to great effect in any classroom, regardless of subject. Palacio does a great job explaining how tolerance works to the reader through the simple depiction of all the different groups peacefully coexisting; the only outlier is Auggie, and eventually, the children overcome that difference as well.

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The Wall: Growing Up Behind The Iron Curtain

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Author(s), Illustrator/Photographer: Peter Sís.

Publisher and Year Number of pages: Frances Foster Books, 2005, 50 Pages.

Descriptive Annotation: The cover features two awards-one Caldecott, and one Robert Siebert, along with a Czech baby in the middle of a giant red star. As a send-up of the sort of books the Soviet and Communist presses made during the Cold War, there are many parodies of Communist Party imagery, the red star on the cover being the first example. This is a combination of both standard Soviet imagery and the kind of cartoons and political drawings that appeared in plentiful quantities in the Prague Spring of 1968, in which control by the Czechoslovak Communist regime was briefly loosened and the free press came roaring back temporarily. The wall is the story of that spring and the effect it had on the author, a Czech-American man and his visit that he took to his homeland with the children he raised in the United States. Their experiences in the city of Prague are much different than those of their father’s: “Now when my American family goes to visit my Czech family in the colorful city of Prague, it is hard to convince them it was ever a dark place full of fear, suspicion and lies” (Sis, p. 49). As his childhood under Communist rule is described to the reader by the use of comic strips on the top of the page and captions on the bottom, Sis also continues to express the fears that tormented him as a young man in the old country, and how he and his family didn’t talk about certain things for fear of the secret police hearing them. The whole of his trials, from growing up in the tightly repressed Czechoslovakia, to experiencing true freedom in the second half of the 1960’s and the subsequent Soviet invasion in August of 1968 and the ways in which the population react (or don’t react) to the actions the Red regime takes against the previously free media and citizenry, are covered in the book. Prior knowledge of what the Cold War and Prague Spring were would certainly be useful in the scenario of students reading this book in the classroom.

Classroom Application: In this picture book, the comic strips depict what is and what is not permitted by the Soviet puppet government at various stages of its existence, which would be ideal for some social studies settings which have students that perhaps had relatives behind the Iron Curtain back in the day, and didn’t get to experience some of the freedoms that we as Americans take for granted. This is a teachable moment since it’s Sis’s way of saying that his life in Czechoslovakia in the 1960s through the 1980s was so drastically different from what students today have to experience (mandatory participation in a scouting movement and collection of scrap metals), it can be hard to teach in some ways. We must try as educators to do so, however, because if we don’t, the same mistakes of the past could easily be repeated again.

Linguistic and Cultural Diversity Analysis: Sis covers the different ways in which the Cold War and Prague Spring are remembered, showing the contrast between East and West through maps and exclaiming what a unique experience having the Beatles and Beach Boys was in his country: “But out of the dark came a glimmer of hope. The Beach Boys arrived. America to the rescue!” (Sis, p. 27-28). Exasperated with the new youth movement and fearful that the colorful styles of the West will destroy their socialist paradise, the Czechoslovak police maul and arrest concertgoers who saw the Beach Boys at Prague’s Lucerna Hall in 1969 as they leave. The return of people not being able to get the music they want from the West through traditional means results in a huge black market forming, one that persists in Sis’s telling until his departure for the US in 1984. This should be a widely taught and used piece of work, both in the US and around the former Eastern Bloc, since it shows the profound failure of the latter and the absolute oppression which results from authoritarianism. In the context of the experience of Sis’s family and millions of others, it is necessary that they are brought some peace of mind that this kind of system can never rear its ugly head again and make people scared to live their lives in peace. Artists like Sis, who was a radio DJ and actually toured with the Beach Boys when they visited his country, can never be truly suppressed by the jackboot of hate, but they need our help whenever possible to keep their creative flames alive.

 

 

 

 

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Stepping Stones: A Refugee Family’s Journey

Posted on November 28, 2018 by | Comments Off on Stepping Stones: A Refugee Family’s Journey

Title: Stepping stones: a refugee family’s journey

Author(s)/Illustrator/Photographer: Margriet Ruurs, stonework done by Nizar Ali Badr

 Publisher and Year Number of pages: Orca Book Publishers, 2016, 27 pages.

Genre: Realistic Fiction

Descriptive Annotation: The cover features a simple artistic rendering of a refugee family fleeing Syria made out of typical pond stones one could find most anywhere, but done in a way that is culturally sensitive-the artist who made the stone sculptures is from Latakia, Syria, and disassembles his pieces as soon as they are photographed. The author actually went and found him and his work on Facebook, but it took some time to get that process going as far as getting the artwork into the book was concerned. As for the book itself, it is a bilingual storybook (English and Arabic text) that involves the engrossing, yet tragic, story of a Syrian family forced to flee their homeland as a result of the ongoing civil war there (2011-present). Rama, our protagonist, is a boy who is used to his peaceful home life with his mother, father, brother Sami, and his grandpa Jedo being the same for years and years. However, the author notes, “that was then, and this is now” (Ruurs, p. 9). Latakia is the only home he’s ever known, and when the war comes to the village, he and his family must flee the land they love so much with tears in their eyes on foot, then by boat to Southern Europe. The family ends up in Europe and is luckily welcomed with open arms, something not all Syrians could state. It would be beneficial for the reader to read up on why and how the civil war got started, as there isn’t much background knowledge provided in the text and it would help to enjoy this story better. The language is pretty simple, but also profound in its own way when describing the devastating impact of the war on ordinary Syrians, particularly Rama and his family.

Classroom Application: It is an ideal text to teach lessons on the aftereffects and Homefront of wars since too often the media and history books solely focus on the big battles and generals instead of the human impact of war, and its unsustainability for the long run. Good stewardship of those who flee strife and calamity is a must, and the author subtly demonstrates that treating your fellow man with dignity and respect is the way rather than outright militancy and sabotage. The best avenue to pursue is to do as the unnamed Europeans do at the end of the book: “Stay here with us. You will be safe now. No more war” (Ruurs, p. 22). How the children best learn this lesson, of course, would be up to the teacher. The passion shown by the main characters in pursuing their goal of freedom from fear and want is certainly a trait for teaching purposes and could be tied into the Four Freedoms speech Franklin Roosevelt gave during World War II in a history classroom setting. Students could think about laws or supreme court decisions that exist in this country that discriminate, or in the past discriminated, against those who took refuge on our shores, and how to go about changing them.

Linguistic and Cultural Diversity Analysis: Since the book is set in Syria and Southern Europe, the culture of the Mediterranean over the centuries is described to a large extent and would be great for a social studies-type course. The traditions of the Syrian people intermingle with those of the host culture they resettle in, but since they are all from the same region to some extent, it is not as much of an adjustment for them as it was for some: “We have a new home now, a home with new sounds and smells, with smiles and people who help” (Ruurs, p. 23). Even though they weren’t part of the group that originally settled the area thousands of years ago, Rama and his family start to readjust, making themselves at home as best they can. Goodness in oneself and others is also a key component in the book, as that kind of lesson never gets old, no matter what sort of class you are teaching, or in what nation-from the US to Sweden to Syria.

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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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