Reviewed by Debbie Reese
Reviewed Source: American Indians in Children’s Literature
Book Author: Sharon Creech
Have you ever used Google Earth? It’s a fascinating tool that lets you look at a place (like your hometown) via satellite photographs.
A few years ago, I started seeing “lit trips” online. Using Google Earth, people put together a webpage that shows places named in any given book. A few days ago while reading Open Culture, I came across a site called Google Lit Trips, where “lit trips” for books are categorized by grade level. There, teachers have uploaded the lit trips they created.
Google Lit Trips is a great project. As a person who loves technology, travel, and children’s literature, I find great value in the project itself. I wondered what books teachers have created lit trips for . . . .
In the K-5 category is Holling Clancy Holling’s Paddle-to-the-Sea. It’s an old book, published in 1941. It won a Caldecott Honor Medal, which attributes to its staying power. In it, an Indian boy (his tribal nation is not named and he does not have a name) carves an Indian in a canoe (from the illustration, the canoe is about ten inches long) and puts it into the water in Canada. The Indian — called “Injun” by some characters — travels to the Great Lakes, the ocean . . . . I can see the allure of doing a Lit Trip for this book, but I wonder what the teacher does with the word Injun?
In the 6-8 grade category is Walk Two Moons, by Sharon Creech. Her book is the focus of today’s post. Continue reading.
Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech
Published by Harper Collins on July 18, 1996
Genres: American Indians First Nations Metis Inuit
Pages: 288
Reading Level: Grades 6-8
ISBN: 9780064405171
Review Source: American Indians in Children's Literature
Publisher's Synopsis: "How about a story? Spin us a yarn." Instantly, Phoebe Winterbottom came to mind. "I could tell you an extensively strange story," I warned. "Oh, good!" Gram said. "Delicious!" And that is how I happened to tell them about Phoebe, her disappearing mother, and the lunatic.
As Sal entertains her grandparents with Phoebe's outrageous story, her own story begins to unfold--the story of a thirteen-year-old girl whose only wish is to be reunited with her missing mother.
In her own award-winning style, Sharon Creech intricately weaves together two tales, one funny, one bittersweet, to create a heartwarming, compelling, and utterly moving story of love, loss, and the complexity of human emotion.
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