Illustrated by David Small.Abstract: A family living in the Appalachian Mountains in the 1930s gets books to read during the regular visits of the "Book Woman"--a librarian who rides a pack horse through the mountains, lending books to the isolated residents.
Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2008.
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4 comments:
Jamie at TUFW: This book has amazing watercolor illistrations and the shading is great.
I really liked the story line. I do not have much prior knowledge of Pack Horse Librians or "Book Women" as they were known as.
The plot of this book is pretty simple—A woman brings books and a boy learns to love reading—but the rich vocabulary really makes it come alive. The author uses a mix of made up words, rare words, and abbreviations, such as “readenest,” a-twixt,” and “’cept.” This book would make the perfect introduction to an elementary school classroom writer’s workshop on vocabulary choice. The students could guess and look up words they don’t know in this story, and then add some more zestful vocabulary to their own writings. This book could also be read to a young resistant-reader, as a way of persuading him or her that maybe he or she could give reading a chance.
I really liked this book. I had never heard of these "Book Women" and thought that what they did was so neat. The illustrations fit this story perfectly. They were very simple and straightforward, which matched the simple, straightforward lifestyle they lived and way the character spoke.
I love the story content and illustrations. I did not know about these "book women" either. I like how the author used the Appalachian dialect of the people in the book. The illustrations fit the story well.
The book could be used in the early elementary classroom especially during National Library week. It would also be a great book to use when studying word choice and voice.
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