Title: The Watsons Go to Birmingham 
Author: Christoper Paul Curtis 
Genre: Audio Book (Fiction)
Awards: Newbery Honor 
Age Group: 12-18


Summary:
This book is about a family of 5 who is living in Flint, Michigan. The middle son, Kenney, talks about his time in school, his brothers, and little sister, along with other members of the family. Kenny often gets picked on in school, but then his "Savior", a little boy much less fortunate than him comes along and the other kids start teasing him, they eventually become best friends. When the family goes on vacation, the story changes dramatically. They go from extremely cold temperatures to extremely hot temperatures, and to a strict grandmother who's agreed with the parents to keep Byron, the oldest brother, for the summer to stay out of trouble. While there, Kenney almost drowns in a whirlpool at the lake, and a bombing happens at Joeys, the baby sister, church. Kenney takes the bombing and drowning pretty hard, and goes into hiding for a while, until Byron explains to him that it wasn't his fault. In the end, they all were alright, and became closer as a family. 

Teacher Evaluation:
Because of the time this book was set in, there are many controversial topics. The segregation, the hatred that was shown for the African American church, and other topics that I would discuss during black history month. A correlation I would use with younger students is that we all should be treated equally and fairly, and to remember not everyone is as fortunate as others, and we should always be kind and caring.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
Title: The Other Side Author: Jacqueline Woodson  Genre: Historical Fiction Awards: N/A Age Group: 8-10 Summary: This book is about two little girls who we separated by a fence, that wasn't safe for them to climb over because the fence separated the whites and blacks. The little white girl would sit on the fence and watch the little black girl play, and one day she saw the black girls playing and asked if she could join, and one of the girls said no. They saw each other in town, and the black girl watched the white girl play in the rain. Once the rain stopped, the little girls introduced themselves and both sat on the fence together. Then, they all jumped together, and when the group was tired, they sat on the fence together.  Teacher Evaluation: This book showed me how we try to keep things separate but eventually, things all come together. I would use this book to teach that friends come in different shades, no matter what society says, "That's just...
Read more
Image
Title: Abuela  Author: Arther Dorros Genre: Multicultural  Awards: N/A  Age Group: 6-9 Summary: This book is about a grandmother or abuela, and her granddaughter. It talks about them going all over the city, and the grandmother telling stories about how she grew up and where she lived. They would fly in the sky like birds and visit all the big cites, and see all of their family. They end their adventure with a boat ride, hand in hand. Teacher Evaluation: This is a book that I would have my ELLs help me with. Once I would get to the Spanish phrases, I would have them say it and I would repeat after them. Since I am teaching them English, they can teach me some Spanish.
Read more
Image
Title: There Was an Old Lady who Swallowed a Fly Author: Child's Play Ltd Genre: Traditional Literature Awards: N/A Age Group: 3-5 Summary: This book was about an old lady who swallowed a fly, and then swallowed other animals to catch the other animals that she swallowed. She swallowed several animals until she died. Teacher Evaluation: This book was a fun book that I would use as a nonsense book. I would read this just for fun, or add an activity for the students to draw of things that would give them a tummy ache.
Read more