Chapter Book 12 / Heart and Soul

Title	Heart and Soul
Author	Kadir nelson
Illustrator	Kadir Nelson
Awards	Coretta Scott King
Publisher	Harper Collins
ISBN	978-0-06-173076-4
Readability Score (GLE = Grade Level Equivalent)	Lexile	1050
	DRA	60
	GLE	6.0
	Guided Reading	X
Genre /      Sub-Genre	Chapter Book / Informational
Theme	Life for a slave
Primary Character	slaves
Classroom Use	I would use this book to teach about African American History.
Summary	·         This book is a story of America and African Americans. In the first chapter it starts out with the Declarations of Independence. It tells the story of slavery and how black people were treated during this time. At the end of the book there is an outline available that relates to African American History. It states in 1565, the African Americans first arrive in North America as slaves of Spanish Colonist. In 1865 the Ku Klux Klan is formed and in 2009, Barack Hussein Obama, the forty-fourth president of the United States, is sworn into office. He is the country’s first black president. Something that I liked about this book was that it also had a list in the back with words and definitions that the kids could use while reading the book. The author also has a not in regards to this book in the back. He states that History was not his favorite subject in school and yet he found himself primarily writhing about and illustrating historical subjects. He felt the most natural and concise way to tell the tale would be through the recollections of a narrator whose family history was very closely tied to the American story. He says that this book is not only the story of his family, but an intimate introduction to American history a that he hopes will remind the readers of the extraordinary story and inspire them to learn more about America.

Chapter Book 11 / An American Plague

Title	An American Plague
Author	Jim Murphy
Illustrator
Awards	Robert F. Sibert Award
Publisher	Clarion Books
ISBN	0-395-77608-2
Readability Score (GLE = Grade Level Equivalent)	Lexile	1130L
	DRA	50
	GLE	8.9
	Guided Reading	V
Genre /      Sub-Genre	Chapter Book / Informational
Theme	Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793
Primary Character
Classroom Use	I would use this book to teach about Colonial America and disease.
Summary	In the late summer of 1793, Philadelphia, then the nation’s capital was hit by a horrifying epidemic. Hundreds of people were falling ill to yellow fever. There was no cure and at the time the cause of the disease was also unknown. Wealthy citizens and most of the national, state, and city government fled the city to avoid the fever. Those who remained struggled to care for the sick and dying while maintaining order in an abandoned city. In a city of 30,000 people (the largest city in the US at the time) between 3000 and 5000 people eventually died of the yellow fever that year. This is the story of how half the city’s residents fled and half of those who remained died; neighboring towns, cities and states barricaded themselves; Washington himself fled, setting off a constitutional crisis; and bloodletting caused blood to run through the streets. It is also the story of a little known chapter in Black History in which free blacks nursed the sick only to be later condemned for their heroic efforts. It would be over a hundred years before doctors finally discovered the way the fever was spread (a type of mosquito, of course) and it was the mid-twentieth century before scientists created a vaccine for the yellow fever. There is still no known cure. ·

Chapter Book 10 / Children of the Great Depression

Title	Children of the Great Depression
Author	Russell Freedman
Illustrator
Awards
Publisher	Clarion Books
ISBN	978-0-618-44630-8
Readability Score (GLE = Grade Level Equivalent)	Lexile	1170L
	DRA	n/a
	GLE	6.9
	Guided Reading	X
Genre /      Sub-Genre	Chapter book / General Nonfiction
Theme	Children’s life during the Great Depression
Primary Character	Children and their families
Secondary Characters
Classroom Use	I would use this book for social studies and teaching during the times of the Great Depression.
Summary	Most of the pictures in this book were created by a dedicated band of federal photographers who fanned out across American during the 1930’s and tried to capture with their cameras the heartbreak and hope of the national crisis known as the Great Depression. American citizens fought for scraps of food like animals. The book discusses the  stock crash that led to the great depression. A grocery store list is also available with the cost of things during this time in the book. They list things from corn flakes to Pontiac Coupes along with the average annual earnings during the Great Depression as well. People were denied the greater part of the necessitates of life. One out of every four Americans could not find work and twenty eight percent of the population had no income at all. Children during this time were quitting school to go to work to help out the family. The Dust Bowl also did not help. People who were share cropping and growing for food could no longer do so. The book discusses the children watching films that were starting to come out in theater such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, The Wizard of Oz and The Lone Ranger. Ten years after the stock market collapsed, there was hope. A New Deal program provided relief for the needy and created hundreds of thousands of jobs for the unemployed and introduced social and economic reforms that have become a lasting part of American life.

Chapter Book 9 / Morning Girl

Title	Morning Girl
Author	Michael Dorris
Illustrator	N/A
Publication Year	1992
Awards	Scott O’Dell Award
Publisher	Hyperion
ISBN	1-56282-285-3
Readability Score (GLE = Grade Level Equivalent)	Lexile	980L
	DRA	50
	GLE	6.3
	Guided Reading	S
Genre /      Sub-Genre	Chapter Book / Historical Fiction / Multicultural
Theme	Discovering who you are
Primary Character	Morning Girl / Star Boy
Secondary Characters	Family Members of Morning Girl and Star Boy
Classroom Use	·         I would use this book to introduce a discussion of Christopher Columbus.
Book Summary	A sister and brother live on an island in the Bahamas and tell a story by alternating chapters. Morning Girl is given her name because she likes to get up really early. Star Boy is the opposite and likes the night. They both live with their mom and dad. The kids are not the best of friends at the beginning of the book but seem to grow closer at the end. Their mother told them that they will be having a baby sister soon but she ends up losing the baby. This really bothers Morning Girl and Star Boy. This book gives the readers a view into the Taino Indian culture where the two children live.  In this book, nature is a main item in the lives of Morning Girl and Star Boy. They have to make their house with things on the island. There are no bricks and things like that. Their roof is made with leaves and they have to make sure that there is several on top so that it does not leak when it rains. In the book, it mentions a terrible storm and all of their belongings blew away along with the roof of their house. Star boy ends up running away and Morning Girl actually worries about him. At the end of the book Morning Girl is in the ocean and she sees a boat with several people on it. She yells for them and they are looking at her with a strange look of disbelief. She runs to tell her family that the island has new visitors on it. In the Epilogue it has a passage from Christopher Columbus about going to an island and seeing new people and he describes the way they look and act.

Picture Book 19 / John, Paul, George and Ben

Title	John, Paul, George and Ben
Author	Lane Smith
Illustrator	Lane Smith
Awards
Publisher	Hyperion Books
ISBN	9-7814-2310-114-7
Readability Score (GLE = Grade Level Equivalent)	Lexile	660L
	DRA	34-38
	GLE	3.5
	Guided Reading	P
Genre /      Sub-Genre	Picture Book / Biography, General Nonfiction, Comedy
Theme	The history of John, Paul, George and Ben
Primary Character	John, Paul, George, Ben
Secondary Characters	Thomas
Classroom Use	I would use this book during a History lesson to discuss the American Revolution
Summary	This book tells about John Hancock, Paul Revere, George Washington, and Ben Franklin. It has a funny twist on why these guys are an important part of history.