This book consists of poems from slavery in America. Although the poems are sometimes worded awkwardly, there is an explanation of the poem right below it, which I think would help children understand the concepts in the poems better, because they don't have to infer. It has poems about how slave owners did not care if families were torn apart in the process of selling slaves, and how some slaves liked to be "domestic slaves" (meaning not field workers) but that meant they were always in closer proximity with their masters.
Overall, this book was very interesting and offers wonderful insight from the point of view of slaves. The author took a year to compose these poems, researching and reading old journal entries and diaries to make these poems as accurate as possible. I think it would be a wonderful book to introduce into the classroom about history and/or Civil Rights. The book also has very vibrant and patterned pictures that would draw the children's attention.
This book seems like a great gateway to introduce slavery. I like how the poems are not too simple so as to encourage inference, but then the poem is explained that way if a student was confused, this could help clarify. I personally just really love children's books that consist of poems.
ReplyDeleteI think poems are a nice way of teaching information, but sometimes they can be hard for children to understand. I think books like this are great because it is a different style and it is nice to not always read the same style. This books looks like it would be great to open up this topic!
ReplyDeleteI really like the format of this book. I know that for some children poetry can be difficult to understand, and I like that underneath each poem it has an explanation. This would be a really great tool for teaching children how to comprehend poetry. It also talks about slavery, which is a very important topic for children to learn about too.
ReplyDeleteI am not a big fan of poetry but I believe that is because I never was introduced to it at a young age. So I believe that it is important to have children reading poetry. I also love that this is about a part of history that everyone needs to know about. I like that they have the descriptions on what the poem is about and I think this would be a great tool to use. However, I would probably show them those later to try and get them thinking and inferring about poetry before they get the answer.
ReplyDeleteIt's common that most poetry books are fairytale based but I think it's cool that it would be put in this way. Sometimes it's easier to learn this way. And it's great that a factual topic like this one is put into this form. I know for me, history is hard for me to grasp and remember so I would utilize this especially for those students who struggle in this area similar to me.
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