Archive for Social Studies

Trapped Behind Nazi Lines: The Story of the US Army Air Force 807th Medical Evacuation Squadron

Written by Eric Braun

Imagine being young and eager to help the wounded and sick during a war. Imagine flying into the unknown and crashing far from where you were supposed to be. That’s what happened to a group of nurses, medics, and their flight crew during World War II. The group were helped by partisans, hunted by Nazi sympathizers and Nazis, and rescued by a coalition of Americans and the British. They endured fleas, lice, starvation, dysentery, blizzards, and hundreds of miles of walking and climbing mountains. While their families worried for them, many quietly celebrated birthdays hiding from the enemy. Eventually, all of the Americans were rescued, but some were stranded in Albania for four and a half months.

From the “Encounter: Narrative Nonfiction Stories,” this is a very exciting account of a little-known slice of human experience from an event that affected most of the world. Readers get to see the interaction of cultures and the sacrifices people throughout the world are willing to make, even when they don’t know the people who are suffering.

Highly recommended.

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  • Trapped Behind Enemy LinesTitle: Trapped Behind Nazi Lines: The Story of the US Army Air Force 807th Medical Evacuation Squadron
  • Author: Eric Braun
  • Published: Capstone Press, March, 2016
  • Reviewer: Sue Poduska
  • Format: Hardcover, 224 pages
  • Grade Level: 4 to 6
  • Genre: Nonfiction, History
  • ISBN: 978-1-6732-0605-0
  • Extras: Maps, Numerous photographs, Timeline, Quotation Source Notes, About the Author, Glossary, Read More, Critical Thinking Using Common Core, Selected Bibliography, Internet Sites, Index

Fish in a Tree

Written by Lynda Mullaly Hunt

Ally is a smart girl, but she has moved around among a lot of different schools. Her inability to read stays hidden behind her many ways of causing classroom distractions.  She is tired of being called, “dumb” and “slow”.  But reading words on a page makes about as much sense as a fish in a tree.

Her current school, especially the principal, is getting equally tired of her. Ally is sent to the office practically every day. The worst being the day she gave her pregnant teacher a sympathy card during the class baby shower. Ally didn’t intend to be mean, she just didn’t know what the words on the card said. She bought it because of the pretty yellow flowers she thought her teacher would love.

Luckily, the substitute teacher is more attune to Ally’s reading problems. He is gentle and affirming. He highlights Ally’s amazing ability to draw in expressive detail. Eventually she admits how the letters move about the page when she tries to read.

This carefully woven novel is about more than just dyslexia. Ally has a father serving overseas in the military and a hard-working mother struggling to make ends meet. There is also an older brother who cannot read, but is a fantastic mechanic. Before the book’s conclusion Ally recognizes her brother has the same learning problem and gets him help. It is a book full of hope and possibilities.

Lynda Hunt also tackles the ever-present issue of bullying in this book.  She approaches it in funny and satisfying ways that relieve the problems rather than escalate them. Ally makes friends slowly with two other students who are also seen as being “different” from the popular crowd. Readers will recognize them as great friends. All the characters are developed thoroughly and become completely recognizable. Adult readers will enjoy recognizing character “types” they have known throughout life.

Chapters are short and contain a lot of dialogue, so this is a fast-moving, entertaining book for fifth grade readers and beyond. It could be used for a book club to open discussion about acceptance of others. Librarians, teachers and counselors can recommend this book to students who may be experiencing dyslexia, a parent in the military or any particular kind of bullying. This text can be used to meet the core curriculum standards in literacy as well as in the social studies content of learning about others with needs as well as how to deal with bullies in the classroom or the school at large.

After reading this book, students may want to look for Lynda’s previous book, One for the Murphys.

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  • Fish in a TreeTitle: Fish in a Tree
  • Author:  Lynda Mullaly Hunt
  • Publisher: Penguin, 2015
  • Reviewer: Elizabeth Swartz
  • Format: Hardcover, 276 pages
  • ISBN:  978-0-399-16259-6
  • Genre: Fiction
  • Grade level: 5 up
  • Extras: Letter from the author to the reader that explains how Lynda Mullaly Hunt understands these problems. She had them herself in school and finally realized the actual problem was one of perception. She became able to perceive herself and others in a new light.  Her heart felt letter will bring a sigh of relief to young struggling readers.

The Paper Cowboy

Written by Kristin Levine

Kristin Levine’s new book introduces readers to the damage done by rumors at any time and place. However, this story takes readers to small town America in the 1950’s. The rumor has to do with who might be a communist. But it isn’t the rumor that takes center stage. It is more about the damage caused by that, Tommy, the twelve year old main character. It is also about all the things that happen to Tommy.

The simple everyday task of burning the trash causes a tragedy in Tommy’s family. This accident pushes Tommy to mature very rapidly. He takes over an early morning paper route to help his parents earn enough money to pay the bills. But he is also covering up for other sins of the family.  His mother is suffering from depression and often beats him when she is angry. Other days she spends the whole day in bed, neglecting the needs of the little children and the house.

Levine seamlessly takes us into the life of this family and the heart of young Tommy who dreams of being a cowboy. While he daydreams about the heroes of the old West, he is busy saving his whole family. He isn’t an unrealistic hero though as he stumbles along his way getting into one scrape after another. Finally, he learns to ask for help and the most unusual people in the town come together to solve the problems.

Grade 5 readers and well beyond will enjoy traveling back into the 50’s to spend time with Tommy and his family. Teachers and librarians will be able to use this book to further develop literacy skills, American history, and social studies. Many of the people who come to Tommy’s aid are immigrants who had great careers in their home countries, but have nothing in their new land. Except the strength of their morals and education, both of which help solve the largest problems Tommy has to face.

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  • Paper CowboyTitle: The Paper Cowboy
  • Author: Kristin Levine
  • Publisher: G.P.Putman’s, 2014
  • Reviewer: Elizabeth Swartz
  • Format: Hardcover, 352 pages
  • ISBN: 978-0-399-16328-9
  • Genre: Historical Fiction
  • Grade level: 5 and up
  • Extras: Author’s Note, photos

Seeing Red

Written by Kathryn Erskine

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After his father dies, Red, a twelve-year-old boy is tries to find a way to get his mother to let the family stay in Stony Gap and run his father’s auto shop. Of course, his motivation goes beyond the business itself. This is the only place Red has ever known and all of his friends are here, as is his great grandfather’s desk with his very own name carved on it.

Woven throughout this coming-of-age story is the story of America’s coming of age through civil rights. Red becomes embroiled with the wrong gang and finds himself stuck gagged and bound watching his friend of a different race beaten and nearly lynched. Red cannot believe that the separation between the races is still a problem in the 70’s.

He learns a lot about himself, his family and his country while learning to become his own man. Book clubs, fifth grade reading classes and older classes studying the Civil Right movements will find this a spellbinding read.

Teachers and librarians, as well as parents, can use this as an excellent read aloud to lead to discussions about tracing family trees and maybe not liking everything found in that past. Ideas like courage, truthfulness, honor and knowledge will be topics of conversation involving this story, individual families and contemporary life. Readers might give thought to what they would be willing to do in standing up for friends and/or strangers of other races.

Literacy skills strengthened throughout this text include, but are not limited to: inferential details, comprehension, main idea, supporting details, plot development, character development, dialogue and setting.

This book could also be used successfully for a readers’ theater by appointing a different reader for each speaking part within a chapter.

  • Seeing RedTitle: Seeing Red
  • Author: Kathryn Erskine
  • Publisher: Scholastic, 2013
  • Reviewer: Elizabeth Swartz
  • Format: Hardcover, 344 pages
  • ISBN:  978-0-545-46440-6
  • Genre: Historical Fiction

The Other Side of Free

Written by Krista Russell

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The year is 1739, the location northern Florida near the Spanish settlement of St. Augustine. Thirteen- year-old fugitive slave Jem has just arrived from Charles Town in the Carolinas with Phaedra, a feisty black runaway woman, who has been “paid” by Jem’s caregiver, conjure woman Aunt Winnie, to escort Jem to Florida and look after him.
Why would Jem and Phaedra want to go to Florida?  Florida was controlled by the Spanish government. Spain had offered freedom to English colonial slaves if they fled the British colonies, swore to assist the Spanish in defeating the British, and converted to Catholicism. A group of fugitives lived at Fort Mose, just outside the Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine. About the same time, a slave uprising occurred along the Stono River near the Florida-Georgia border. The British colonists slaughtered or sold many rebels.

Krista Russell, according to her website, writes “stories of adventure that bring history to life.” She has succeeded in this case. Once Jem and Phaedra arrive at Fort Mose, the adventures begin: rescuing an owl, meeting the trader Reynard, learning to fish and hunt the Indian way from Domingo, arrival of other fugitives, encounters in the forest, threats from the British, scarce supplies, preparing for battle, and the battle.
The story line drags a bit at the beginning, but reaches a flashpoint and firepower speed when Jem spies several British soldiers, and British ships blockade the St. Augustine harbor. All the fugitives gather in the Castillo for safety, but supplies are low. Jem learns about what the British have done to Fort Mose. Consequently, the Spanish authorities develop a plan to defeat the British soldiers at Fort Mose based on Jem’s reports.

The characters are many and diverse, each having his own story to enrich the general narrative. Jem is an immature and naïve thirteen, resentful of strong willed Phaedra and missing Aunt Winnie. Jem’s and Phaedra’s strong stubborn wills clash. Phaedra’s history remains a mystery until the final chapters. Reynard, the trader, adds the historical details about the importance of trading with the Indians and the British and American colonists, not only providing goods but also news. Big Sunday is the leader of the slaves and connection to the Native Americans via his son Domingo and connection to the Spanish governor and general who live in St. Augustine. General Rooster is what the slaves have nicknamed General Rojas who trains the fugitives to help fight off the British. Shadrack is the old conjure man who is the fort charcoal maker.

Interspersed throughout is the owl, Omen, that Jem rescues from his nest when he observes crows attacking the owlet. Phaedra dislikes and resents the owlet and the time Jem  spends feeding it, mending it, teaching it how to fly, and, finally, hunting for itself. However, Omen teaches Jem about the forest and the ways of the forest that help Jem provide information during the siege

Several strands of the narrative seem extraneous.  While Jem thinks about his Aunt Winnie, he remembers her stories, the stories of trickster Brer Rabbit and tells them to Omen. General Rojas propositions Phaedra, who rebuffs him. Why is that short episode needed in a story for middle grade readers?  Could other descriptions, examples, information have been used to establish the personalities of Rojas and Phaedra? Neither does the element of conjuring, while providing additional richness to the African-American culture, seem to be necessary to the forward movement of the general thesis.

Few books have been written for upper elementary/middle school readers about this period and location in America history. Most emphasis has been on the British colonies and the use of slaves on the southern plantations. Historians now consider the Fort Mose site and the flight of the slaves from the Carolinas and Georgia as the precursor of the Underground Railroad that took many slaves to safety in the north or to Canada. Russell’s previous book Chasing the Nightbird was a NCSS/CBC Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People in 2012; Other Side of Free will probably also be included in that honor listing.

Extras: Author website kristarussell.com
Fort Mose Historic State Park: www.floridastateparks.org/fortmose
Castillo De San Marcos:  www.nps.gov/casa/index.htm;
Stono River Slave Rebellion Site: www.discoversouthcarolina.com/products/3566.aspx

  • Other Side of FreeTitle: The Other Side of Free
  • Author: Krista Russell
  • Publisher: Peachtree, 2013
  • Reviewer: Marion Mueller
  • Format: Hardcover, 256 pages
  • Genre: Historical fiction
  • ISBN: 978-1-56145-710-6
  • Reading level: 4.9

Women of the Frontier: 16 Tales of trailblazing Homesteaders, Entrepreneurs, and Rabble-Rousers

Written by Brandon Marie Miller

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It’s unusual for such a heavily researched and annotated work as this to be so exciting. The author chose the stories of women with a lot to tell, and she makes the reader care. The author also categorizes stories that defy category.

Not surprisingly, the stories begin with the trek west. The reader learns about Margaret Reed, a member and survivor of the ill-fated Donner party. The ordeal is real without being overly graphic. Amelia Stewart Knight was another early settler who faced unbelievable hardship – along the Oregon Trail. The next three women – Narcissa Whitman, Miriam Davis Colt, and Frances Grummond – faced unusual challenges establishing households on the frontier. Narcissa set out to be a missionary to Native Americans in Oregon. She was killed without converting a single “heathen.” Miriam wrote a book about her failed colony in Kansas. Frances married an army office and found new meanings for isolation and deprivation.

Many women in the West learned to make their own way. Luzena Stanley Wilson went west with the Gold Rush and made a living feeding or housing the men. Clara Brown was a laundress/entrepreneur/philanthropist. Bethenia Owens-Adair was a healer and physician.

Not everyone spent all their time with mere survival. Martha Dartt Maxwell became a taxidermist and introduced western animals to the East. Charlotte “Lotta” Crabtree was a baby-faced, famous singer.

Many women considered the future of the West. Mary Elizabeth Lease immersed herself in the populist movement. Carry Nation fought for temperance and women’s suffrage.

In the category of culture clash, Rachel Parker Plummer and Cynthia Ann Parker are examples of white women held captive by Native Americans. Sarah Winnemucca and Susette La Flesche were Native Americans who fought for their native people.

This work is great as a referential beginning point for a fifth grade unit of the American West or Native Americans. Many of these women wrote about their lives, so reading activities naturally flow into learning more about them and the topics they wrote about. The author includes a table of contents, notes, resources, an index, and numerous photos.

  • Women of the FrontierTITLE: Women of the Frontier: 16 Tales of trailblazing Homesteaders, Entrepreneurs, and Rabble-Rousers
  • AUTHOR: Brandon Marie Miller
  • PUBLISHER: Chicago Review Press
  • REVIEWER: Sue Poduska
  • EDITION: 2013
  • ISBN: 978-1-883052-97-3
  • GENRE: Hard cover, Women, American West, History
  • LEXILE: NA

 

Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address

Written by Abraham Lincoln

Illustrated by James Daugherty

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Four score and seven years ago……..Do you know the rest?  The Gettysburg Address is probably one of the most famous speeches made in history.  Everyone is at least familiar with some of it or the president who spoke it.  In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln stood under a November wintery sky and delivered a two minute speech that changed history.   James Daugherty has created wonderful pictorial interpretation of this infamous speech.   Each page contains a part of that speech with  an interpretation of that particular part of the speech.   Students with higher reading skills will be the target for this book, while the illustrations will appeal to many others.

I remember having to memorize this speech in 5th grade. Oh what a joy it would have been to have a book such as this in which to do the memorizing.  The illustrations bring the book to life, capturing the events in bright, bold colors.  The illustrations also help the reader with comprehension.   After the speech is finished the author has added descriptions of his paintings and his interpretation.  This book would be a wonderful tool in teaching the Gettysburg Address.

Along with the speech itself, there is a bit of added history from Daugherty.  President Lincoln was not informed until just a few days prior, that he would be speaking at all.  It is rather remarkable that Lincoln felt his speech was a “flat failure”, yet here we are 100+ years later and it is still remembered as a turning point in our progress as a nation.  The most poignant line that we as a nation should strive for is still as relevant today as it was back then – “a government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth”.

  • Gettysburg AddressTITLE: Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address
  • AUTHOR:  Abraham Lincoln
  • ILLUSTRATION: James Daugherty
  • PUBLISHER: Albert Whitman and Company
  • REVIEWER: Cheri Liddy
  • ISBN: 978-0-8075-4550-8
  • GENRE: History

The Arab World Thought of It: Inventions, Innovations, and Amazing Facts

Written by Saima S. Hussain

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The Arab World Thought of It: Inventions, Innovations, and Amazing Facts Is written for fifth grade level readers and above. It is a picture and text guide to exciting and little known facts about some things very familiar to readers, but who may not know much about the Arab contributions to our world.

Young readers are curious and ready to discover facts that maybe even their parents don’t know so reading this or studying this in the classroom will keep them engaged with new and fascinating information.  The scalpel, for instance, might be familiar to the reader, but the fact that the first one was the invention of an Arab physician may come as a surprise. Teachers and librarians will agree that this book is full of interesting factual information that will enhance World History and Social Studies.

The book aligns with the core standards for the fifth grade through middle school level reader and the language is easy to comprehend. The additional pictures and captions will assist even a lower level 5th grade reader with a great understanding and will spark more interest in what some might feel is a dry historical topic.

More information about the series is available on the website of the publisher at www.annickpress.com but the last pages of the book will also give further reading, samples of the Arabic Alphabet, and common words translated into original Arabic words giving extra activities for the 5th grade classroom teacher or for parents who home school their children.

The book is a great addition to classroom, library, or home collection of books for the 5th grade level reader and will serve as a great resource when comparing other cultures and their contributions to our world. Discussions and further study regarding language, sports, medicine, architecture, and astronomy will be enhanced with The Arab World Thought of It.

  • The Arab WorldTitle: The Arab World Thought of It
  • Author: Saima S. Hussain
  • Publisher: Annick Press
  • ISBN: 978-1-55451-476-2
  • Reviewer: Terri Forehand
  • Genre: Nonfiction, culture, inventions
  • Lexile: 1140

The Garden of My Imaan

Written by Farhana Zia

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A lively story about choices facing today’s Muslim American girls.  Aliya is a typical fifth grade girl: she wants to talk to a boy she has a crush on, she wants to know how to stand up for herself and she wonders how to reconcile school life with life at home.  The difference is that she is Muslim and she feels uncomfortable with what that means in America today.  Then she is asked to show a new girl, Marwa, around.  She is a strict Muslim.  She already wears a hajib but, even more, she is calm and confident in the face of discrimination and bullying.  Aliya resents being asked to be Marwa’s friend because it calls everyone’s attention to the fact that they are both Muslim.  Aliya is embarrassed partly because she doesn’t know what she believes.  She begins to write letters to Allah to express her frustration and confusion.  Thanks to the gentle guidance of her grandmother and Marwa’s example, Aliya begins to see that complaining doesn’t accomplish anything, but doing something does.  She is bold enough to stand up to the class bully.  She finds the courage to run for student council.  She even sees that an offer of friendship is the best way to make peace with the mean girl.

Aliya grows and matures in a way that will speak to any girl no matter what her religious background.  The story helps explain Muslim beliefs and shows that there is no typical Muslim.  Aliya’s family is from India, while Marwa’s is from Morocco, and yet they are treated the same by people either carrying prejudice towards Muslims or who simply don’t know the differences.  The grandmothers are fun.  There is a grandmother, great-grandmother and a great aunt, all of whom influence Aliya and entertain the reader.  Aliya’s best friend is Winnie, who is part Korean, so the theme of understanding different cultures is carried throughout.  This would be a good book club selection for a girl’s book club.  If this is used as a read aloud, be aware that there are several Arabic and Urdu phrases woven into the dialog.  The students could look up these phrases on the internet and hear them pronounced as a literacy activity, perhaps gaining insight into families with different backgrounds.

  • Garden of My ImaanTITLE: The Garden of My Imaan
  • AUTHOR: Farhana Zia
  • PUBLISHER: Peachtree, 2013
  • REVIEWER: Risa Brown
  • EDITION: Hardcover, 230 p.
  • ISBN: 978-1-56145-698-7
  • GENRE: Middle-grades fiction, school stories, multicultural fiction
  • Lexile 600

Travels with Gannon and Wyatt: Botswana

Written by Patti Wheeler & Keith Hemstreet

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Ever dreamt of going on an African Safari?  Well, now you don’t have too thanks to this 5th grade book by Pattie Wheeler and Keith Hemstreet.  Listed in some places as non-fiction, the first offering in the Travels with Gannon and Wyatt series takes readers to the Kalahari Desert and the Okavango Delta in Botswana.  Their journey is presented through the alternating journal entries of twin 15-year-old boys with black and white snapshots interspersed within the text.

The book provides enough detail about the animals, people, wildlife, and flora/fauna of Botswana to satisfy the most hungry travelers and wannabe adventurers.  It is highly recommended for lovers of nature and geography who like a small dose of danger and excitement mixed into their discovery.  Near the beginning, Wyatt and Gannon’s mother is nearly attacked by a Rhino protecting her babies.  The middle of the book finds the twins accompanying an adventure guide and an elder bushman on a search for a lioness who’s been shot by a poacher.  Along the way they encounter vultures, a sleepy croc, black mambas, a cobra, cape buffalo and the rest of the big five… all while battling fevers, lack of food (thanks to an opportunistic baboon)  and unfavorable weather conditions.   The pacing is good and there is enough going on to keep the most reluctant of readers turning the page.

Those seeking a solid story line with a plot arc and character development may be disappointed, however.  Although Gannon and Wyatt are described as stereotypical opposites – Wyatt is an introvert with a love of science, while Gannon is much more outgoing and interested in people – it is often hard to tell, within the text, whose journal entry you are reading.  The author guides us through this by identifying the writer at the start of each entry along with the date and a description of their location and the weather conditions (with Wyatt’s being more detailed than Gannon’s.)  But the amount of information they provide and the advanced age at which they write is essentially the same.  Apart from Gannon’s inconsistently casual voice and occasional use of slang, it is hard to image the astute observations and precious commentary on human nature coming from the journal of an average middle grader.

Gannon and Wyatt are real 15-year-olds, however, who liken their journals to the work of historic explorers such as Lewis and Clark, Dr. David Livingstone, and Captain James Cook.  Based very loosely on the “research missions” of these home schooled teens (who visited Botswana along with mother and co-author, Patti Wheeler, and collaborated with Keith Hemstreet to create the adventure tales over fireside chats) the book definitely delivers on it’s promise to provide travelogue mixed with educational material that you can’t get in textbooks.  It would work well as a classroom read aloud or book assignment in conjunction with a topic specific geography or social studies unit.  Other destinations in the planned book series include Canada’s Great Bear Rainforest, Egypt, Greenland, and Iceland.

With book trailers and short “episodes” (http://www.youtube.com/user/gannonandwyatt), a blog of field notes on their website (http://www.travelswithgannonandwyatt.com/blog), plus an invitation for readers to join the Youth Exploration Society (YES) the authors have succeeded in providing something for every student – from those who crave information to those more interested in exploring the visual parts of Gannon and Wyatt’s travels.  The reading activities teachers can apply to these books are endless, especially as the series continues to expand.

  • Travels with GannonTitle: Travels with Gannon and Wyatt: BOTSWANA
  • Author: Patti Wheeler & Keith Hemstreet
  • Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group Press
  • Reviewer: Yolanda Ridge
  • Book Length: 76 pages
  • ISBN: 978-1-60832-585-6
  • Genre: Nature, Adventure

 

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