5th Grade Booktalks for 3/14/08

What is historical fiction? It's just like regular fiction, i.e. made up stories, only they take place in the past.

Hattie Big Sky by Kirby Larson
It's 1917. Hattie's 16 years old and her best friend Charlie is shipping out to go fight the Germans. Hattie's in for an adventure herself. Her uncle died and left her a plot of land in Montana, so Hattie, who's only 16 remember, goes out to Montana all by herself to be a homesteader and farmer. It's a hard life, made harder by the fact that the war rages on an old farmer keeps trying to buy Hattie's land away from her. Will she manage to make her farm successful? Will her friend Charlie return from the war alive? Can Hattie hold it all together? Another interesting thing about this book is that Hattie, the main character, is actually based on the author's great-grandmother. And the author lives right here in the Seattle area. It's a Newbery Honor book, too.

Draonwings by Lawrence Yep
Another Newbery Honor book. It's 1903. A young boy named Moon Shadow travels from his native China to San Francisco to live with his father, whom he has never met. This book looks at America through the eyes of an immigrant who calls white people demons. It has a lot of difficulty in it, such as the great San Francisco earthquake of 1906, but it also has a lot of hope in it, too. If you know your history, you'll be aware that 1903 was the year the Wright Brothers took their famous first flight in one of the first successful airplanes. Well, Moon Shadow's father is a bit of an aviator himself and that's where the title of the book comes from.

The Ornament Tree by Jean Thesman
It's 1918. The first World War is coming to an end and 14-year-old Bonnie is moving from her mean old aunt's farmhouse to stay with her mother's family in Seattle. They own a boarding house, but they're pretty terrible at it. Bonnie's women cousins are supposed to be good at running a household, but they care more about getting women the right to vote and encouraging Bonnie to go after her dreams. And a particular boarder, a young man blinded during the war, challenges Bonnie to go beyond what's expected of women, too.

Dave at Night by Gail Carson Levine
So now we're in the Roaring 20s, the 1920s, that is. We're traveling from Seattle to New York City, specifically to the Hebrew Home for Boys, an orphanage where the narrator, 11-year-old Dave finds himself living after his father falls off a roof and dies. But Dave is not one to stay put when he's unhappy, so he sneaks out of the orphanage at night and discovers Harlem. He meets socialites, artists, musicians, and poets like Langston Hughes. Does anyone remember what we call that time in history? The Harlem Renaissance. This is a funny and exciting book about that time. Like Hattie Big Sky, this book is based on the author's family member's life, this time her father's.

Witness by Karen Hesse
A little town in Vermont. 1924. And the clan moves in. Cast of characters each talk. Here's an example.

Eyes of the Emperor by Graham Salisbury
World War II. (Under the Blood-Red Sun by same author is good too, but Lindi's processing it.) Both books are about a Japanese-American boy living in Hawaii when the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor in 1941. In the other he's 10 and in this one he's 16 and he joins the army.

Aleutian Sparrow by Karen Hesse
Also World War II. The Japanese also attacked Alaska, which I didn't even know, in 1942 after Pearl Harbor. This is the story of what happened to the native people, the Aleuts, who were evacuated for their own protection by the U.S. army.

Jackie & Me by Dan Gutman
This book is set in the now, but it's about a boy who can time travel with baseball cards. So he goes back to 1947 to see Jackie Robinson break the color barrier.

The Circuit by Francisco Jimenez
This is a new book, so I thought I'd bring it up. It's about a family that moves to the U.S. from Mexico illegally. It helps to know a little tiny bit of Spanish. Panchito is the narrator. He can only go to school when his family doesn't need him to be a picker in the fields of California.

Also mention:

Dear America and My America series by various authors (published by Scholastic)

American Girls series

Mildred Taylor's Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry series

If you've read Christopher Paul Curtis's The Watsons Go to Birmingham or Bud, Not Buddy, those are also historical fiction.