Module 5 Historical Fiction Book Reviews
Book Review #1 One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia
Bibliography
Williams-Garcia, Rita. One Crazy Summer. Amistad, an Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2010.
Plot Summary
The book opens up with 3 siblings heading alone to visit their mom, someone with whom they seem to have a rough history with due to some abandonment and separations. Delphine, the protagonist, is a very observant little girl who tries to be strong for her siblings. They struggle in adapting to the new environment they are temporarily in, left alone to fend for themselves due to a neglectful mother. However, their need to go out around town helps them run into The Center, in which they meet the Black Panthers. From here, their luck turns when they are absorbed into a new learning environment when they decide to stay for the summer camp program. In this summer camp, they meet so many new people that help them learn about themselves and about the life around them, given the time period they live in.
Critical Analysis
Throughout the book, there are mentions of important references that students benefit from such as Muhammad Ali, racial differences at that time period, mannerisms and observations htat kids make at young ages, etc. Regarding the aspect of learning about revolutionary topics and “real world” problems, children are for the most part always wanting to take part in these conversations, even though they don’t always know. In the book, Delphine expresses some lack of knowledge in certain areas such as “I was disappointed. Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali were the only faces I could name,” which our students and even adults and teachers can relate to that feeling. The truth is that children naturally want to learn, and this book captures that desire to instinctively want to be better and learn and gain as much education. Children are hungry to soak up knowledge and be part of the world. The book does a great job in capturing that part of a children’s life, while explaining such an important part of our history. As far as the history is described in the book, it illustrates the curious parts that children might not know and want to learn about, making it realistic.
Review Excerpt
Kirkus Reviews: A flight from New York to Oakland, Calif., to spend the summer of 1968 with the mother who abandoned Delphine and her two sisters was the easy part. Once there, the negative things their grandmother had said about their mother, Cecile, seem true: She is uninterested in her daughters and secretive about her work and the mysterious men in black berets who visit. The sisters are sent off to a Black Panther day camp, where Delphine finds herself skeptical of the worldview of the militants while making the best of their situation. Delphine is the pitch-perfect older sister, wise beyond her years, an expert at handling her siblings: “Just like I know how to lift my sisters up, I also knew how to needle them just right.” Each girl has a distinct response to her motherless state, and Williams-Garcia provides details that make each characterization crystal clear. The depiction of the time is well done, and while the girls are caught up in the difficulties of adults, their resilience is celebrated and energetically told with writing that snaps off the page.
Connections
Students are able to relate to this story through a few points. First, some students can relate to having divorced parents and the experiences that come with that mentioned in the book such as you and your siblings traveling to and from one parent’s home to another, dragging your belongings along with you. Students are also able to relate in the way that, unfortunately, they are the main ones taking care of their younger siblings. Sadly, some parents are too busy or overwhelmed or dealing with their own issues that they fail to see how important it is to raise their kids and pay them attention. Another major part that students can connect to is that the book talks a lot about summer camps and learning there, through those role models, learning about things that maybe their parents or even teachers have not exactly mentioned to them before. The protagonist expresses some lack of knowledge in certain areas such as “I was disappointed. Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali were the only faces I could name,” which our students and even adults and teachers can relate to that feeling. The truth is that children naturally want to learn, and this book captures that desire to instinctively want to be better and learn and gain as much education. Children are hungry to soak up knowledge and be part of the world.
Book Review #2 Breaking Stalin’s Nose by Eugene Yelchin
Bibliography
Yelchin, Eugene. Breaking Stalin’s Nose. Henry Holt and Company. LLC, 2011.
Plot Summary
The story starts with a little boy who loves his dad, his country, and its beliefs. His dad works hard and is very respected among the other soviet communists. The little boy has been raised to be proud of everything they and their country stands for. Everything changes when one night, his father is arrested in the middle of the night, leaving Sasha to be alone and have nowhere to go after his aunt turns him away in fear of getting arrested also. After an incident at school that feels and will be treated as basically treason, of the breaking of Stalin’s nose, Sasha worries he will be arrested and not become a pioneer anymore if they find out it was him. Sasha's experiences and his guilt makes him realize how faulty the system is through communism, realizing one terrible thing after another about his own friends, family, and classmates. Sasha realizes he does not actually want to be a part of the government or family that does not stand by what’s right.
Critical Analysis
This is a very engaging story that involves short chapters and a few pictures and lots of genuine feelings that children experience to keep the readers interested, all the while sharing pieces of history! Through the implicitness of the storytelling of Sasha’s experience, we learn the evil, corrupt, and unfair ways that communism can sometimes take form in. This was definitely a good “historical fiction” story that was very informative not only about the history of this time period, but about a little boy’s coming of age story.
Review Excerpt
Kirkus Reviews: There’s no place for the likes of you in our class,” Sasha Zaichik’s teacher tells him, and that seems to be the motto of the whole Stalinist nation.
Yelchin’s debut novel does a superb job of depicting the tyranny of the group, whether residents of a communal apartment, kids on the playground, students in the classroom or government officials. It’s the readiness of the group to create outsiders—bad ones, “unreliables,” “wreckers”—by instilling fear in everyone that chills. Not many books for such a young audience address the Stalinist era, when, between 1923 and 1953, leaving a legacy of fear for future generations. Joseph Stalin’s State Security was responsible for exiling, executing or imprisoning 20 million people. Sasha is 10 years old and is devoted to Stalin, even writing adoring letters to Comrade Stalin expressing his eagerness at becoming a Young Pioneer. But his mother has died mysteriously, his father has been imprisoned and Sasha finds he has important moral choices to make. Yelchin’s graphite illustrations are an effective complement to his prose, which unfurls in Sasha’s steady, first-person voice, and together they tell an important tale.
A story just as relevant in our world, “where innocent people face persecution and death for making a choice about what they believe to be right,” as that of Yelchin’s childhood.
Connections
Students can connect with the story in many ways, starting from admiring and looking up to your father, to wanting to make your father proud and demonstrate to him that you uphold his values and try to make him proud, to wanting to be recognized and admired in school, to not wanting to snitch out your friends but at the same time not wanting to be the one to own up and get in trouble yourself and be made an example in front of others. This book has a very important connection in a coming of age story with children realizing the only way they can make themselves proud is by standing up for what is truly right.
Book Review #3 The Storm in the Barn by Matt Phelan
Bibliography
Phelan, Matt. The Storm in the Barn. Candlewick Press, 2009.
Plot Summary
The story starts off with the year and setting, immediately placing us in the center of the Dust Bowl, Kansas 1937. Throughout the pictures, we see a family, specifically the father, packing up their belongings and fleeing a very dusty, dull place. We are let into the life of a family that is struggling to survive the dust storms that take over their lives. People are sick, starving, and very poor. The book centers around one specific little boy, Jack, who tries to make sense of what is happening. He struggles with bullies at school, with adults treating him like a child, when all he wants is to help make time better during this challenging time period. Wanting to help and be useful to the adults, Jack goes to the barn and has weird encounters there. People dismiss it as “dust dementia,” but he persists, knowing he’s onto something. Ultimately, he meets a metaphorical figure claiming to be “the rain,” and shares a story about how it became the rain king and tries to scare Jack. Jack, however, builds up his courage and fights back against the rain king, allowing him to flee the barn quickly. The rain king follows him up to a high point, and Jack is able to defeat it, making it rain in his town! The book ends with his father accepting his help and voicing his importance.
Critical Analysis
This book is very unique in the format that the information is presented because it is very illustration heavy! It’s amazing that a historical fiction book can have so much creativity! It’s books like this that hook students early on in this genre. The book, without saying much through narration or dialogue with the exception of a few phrases and exchanges, says a million things through its pictures. Another great thing about this book is that it is told from the point of view of a little boy. His curiosity and desire to understand what is happening in their time period resonates with a lot of children who try so hard to know what the adults are feeling and thinking. The book does a very good job in depicting the struggles and emotions occurring during this time in American history.
Review Excerpt
Kirkus Reviews: leven-year-old Jack Clark feels useless on his family’s Kansas farm. It’s 1937: The rain went away when he was seven, so he’s never been able to help out. His older sister Dorothy is sick with Dust Pneumonia, and little sister Mabel doesn’t provide much companionship. Jack is the favorite target of the town bullies, but general-store owner Ernie tries to cheer Jack with traditional “Jack tales.” Then the boy sees a mysterious flash in the Talbots’ abandoned barn. When he investigates, he discovers a frightening apparition. Talking about it starts rumors he is suffering from Dust Dementia. Just when his family has given up hope, Jack, inspired by Ernie’s stories, confronts the creature and fights a fantastic battle with miraculous results. Author/illustrator Phelan’s first graphic tale is part historical mystery, part fantasy thriller. The pencil-and-watercolor panels are cinematically framed and often wordless, advancing the plot and delineating character with careful strokes. The bleakness of the Dust Bowl comes through in both the landscape and the hopeless faces of his characters. This is not to be missed.
Connections
This book is interesting because with just pictures, children are able to connect. The emotions portrayed in the illustrations speak a million words! Children can relate to wanting to grow up and be treated as part of the adults and wanting to help and be useful to the grown ups, when all the grown ups do is dismiss them as “just little kids,” that don’t know what they’re doing. I think this book puts into perspective how much childrena actually have to offer if we just take the time to listen and not underestimate their understanding of situations. Children can also relate to maybe having sick parents or parents who struggle financially.
Book Review #4 Nory Ryan’s Song by Patricia Reilly Giff
Bibliography
Giff, Patricia Reilly. Nory Ryan’s Song. Random House Children’s Books, SCHOLASTIC INC., 2000.
Plot Summary
The beginning of the book starts off with Nory and her experience with poverty. The magnitude of the poverty her family faces is so grand that it affects her family and its relationships. This takes place during the potato irish famine, so one can understand the gravity of this matter. One day, her older sister decides to move to America for a better life, leaving Nory behind with her grandpa and her little brother. It’s difficult for her as a young girl to help out around the house in getting food and money to survive.
Critical Analysis
At the beginning of the book there is a Glossary section with about 9 words that help pronounce the words and know their meanings so that they can refer back to it throughout the book. This chapter book involves a lot of emotions and experiences of a young girl. She goes through days and thoughts that a normal young girl or boy would experience in those situations of starvation, helping the readers relate through that point of view.
Review Excerpt
Kirkus Reviews: Through young Nory's eyes, the aptly named Great Hunger is devastatingly real: not only do livestock and grain disappear, but so do shellfish and kelp, and finally even nettles and other weeds. Families are mercilessly driven from their homes, the dead are buried without ceremony, and little Patrick becomes ever thinner and more pitiable. Grasping at a sudden chance, big sister Maggie takes off for America, then Granda and teenage Celia set out for Galway, hoping to meet Da on the docks—leaving Nory to care for Patrick, and for old Anna Donnelly, a neighbor with a tragic past, as well. Nory makes the hardest sacrifice of all when an emigrating family invites her along and she sends Patrick in her place. So grim is the picture Giff draws that readers are likely to be startled by the sudden turnaround at the end, when news of Da's reappearance brings ship's passage for all and the prospect of a happy reunion in New York. Still, Nory's patient, stubborn endurance lights up this tale, and the promise of better times to come is well deserved.
Connections
Students are able to connect through the relationships of their family members, especially their grandparents. They are also able to relate and connect with the part of the moving homes. Sadly, another major connection that could be made is experiencing hunger and poverty. Our students in the Rio Grande Valley don’t come from privileged, well-off families and sometimes need assistance in getting food or shelter. Lastly, students can relate to this book through the theme of emigrating from one country to another for better living conditions, as most of their family's generations has moved out of Mexico due to poverty or violence.
No comments:
Post a Comment