| Booktalk
#1
On a
rainy day in the 1930's, Jeremy Simms, a young white boy, sits at a bus
stop and watches the world around him. He sees the everyday life in Depression
era Mississippi. He witnesses the unfair treatment of African Americans.
When the bus finally arrives, Jeremy watches as the African Americans are
forced to take seats at the back of the bus. When a white family arrives,
the African Americans are told to get off the bus to make room for the
new arrivals. Find out how this fateful trip turns out.
Booktalk
#2
Whenever I watch the news lately
I hear more and more about hard economic times. Month after month, more
people are losing their jobs. Maybe even at your home money is tighter
now.
The book Mississippi Bridge
is set in our country when the economy was at its worst, almost a hundred
years ago during the Great Depression. Cotton prices have gone from 12
cents a pound, down to 5 cents a pound. People can't afford to pay workers
any longer. To make matters worse, the spring rains won't quit, so farmers
can't even get into the fields to plant.
This book would be especially
interesting for upper elementary age students. Not only is it a story about
tough times with money, but also tough times for black people, before our
country had civil rights for all. It's a story about a bus, and black people
being asked to give up their seats—but it's not the familiar story of Rosa
Parks who rode a bus that changed history in the 1960s. Mississippi Bridge
is a fiction story about a bus ride in the 1930s, a bus ride over a flooded
bridge that ended in tragedy.
So, what happened when the
bus went over the flooded bridge? In this brief book of just 64 pages,
you can find out. (Denise Krebs, dkrebs@spalding-catholic.pvt.k12.ia.us,
teacher) |
