| Booktalk
#1
Ursula and her family run the
stagecoach station in Whistle, Montana. Ursula loves living there
and has turned her group of friends into a “band of blood thirsty pirates.”
Then Ursula gets smallpox. Even when she is well, she refuses to
leave her house because of her smallpox scars. Ursula’s parents try
many ways to entice her to leave the house but only through the efforts
of their new Chinese cook, Ah Sam, does Ursula finally decide to rejoin
her community and friends. To find out how Ursula makes that decision
and how she thanks Ah Sam for helping her, read When the Circus Came to
Town.
Prepared by: Sue Bennett for
South
Carolina Children's Book Award
Booktalk #2
My name is Ursula and I live
in Whistle, Montana. Ma and Pa run a stagecoach station and I get
to see a lot of travelers passing through town. I caught small pox
and it left my face very scarred. I don't want to leave my bedroom
and I don't even want to see my two best friends, Susie and Peter.
They miss me a lot and keep coming to visit me. I wish they would
stop trying to see me. The one thing I would really love to see is
a circus. But that's impossible now. Ma and Pa hired a Chinese
cook, Ah Sam. He's a nice man and I feel sorry for him sometimes because
people make fun of him. But Ah Sam is a very wise man and he has
planned a big surprise for me. I have a big surprise for him too.
Read When The Circus Came To Town by Laurence Yep to find out what
happens when Ah Sam's three cousins come to town. (New
Hampshire Great Stone Face Committee)
Booktalk #3
Nine-year-old Ursula lives in Whistle, Montana in the early 1900’s.
Her pa calls it “the back of beyond” because it’s so far from civilization.
But Ursula finds lots to do-leading her friends on pirate adventures, reading,
helping out with the stagecoach station her parents run. Then IT
happens. Ursula catches smallpox, and though she lives, her face
is pitted and scarred. She can’t face the world for fear of being
made fun of, and her world becomes her room-until the Chinese cook her
parents hired invites his cousins to come and put on a circus for the people
in Whistle. Ursula is lured out of her room to play music for the
circus, and she conquers her fears and rediscovers all the joys life has
to offer. (Mary Lou Wallace, marylwal@bellsouth.net,
East Aiken Elementary School Media Center, Aiken, SC)
Booktalk #4 |
