Customer Reviews

January's Sparrow

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I teach middle school kids and I love them. They think they know so much and yet are open to learning more. This book touched them like no other book ever has. The impact was visible. I am serious. It was profound for white students in the North to "get" the fact that slavery had an impact here, too. They felt so isolated from this issue before this book. Now, when I read my students' writing, I see their attempts at realistic references to slavery, and to understanding the world from the point of view of someone else - this is a pretty incredible gift Polacco has given teachers and students.

This book, along with Pink and Say, are perfect for middle school kids. They give good, true information in a format that is non-threatening. The kids are appropriately shocked and outraged, but they are allowed to digest it at their own pace and they have Patricia's gentle and beautiful artwork to help them understand.

This book should win the Newbery and Caldecott Awards.

Patricia Polacco has done it again! Her stories are an inspiration! This book reveals a very serious subject in a way that young children can understand and respond to it!

Patricia Polacco has done it again. This is a heart wrenching story of slavery and bravery. Very well written and illustrated as with all of her books.

Patricia Polacco's JANUARY'S SPARROW is a pick for grades 3-5, telling of the Crosswhites, who flee the Kentucky plantation they slave on leaving everything behind. Their slow journey to Michigan seems to lead to freedom - but slave catchers still threaten their lives. How the family and a small town face these slave catchers and stand up for themselves makes for and absorbing, riveting story of nearly 100 pages paired with fine color drawings throughout.

Every elementary-aged child needs this book in his ore her personal library, and every public library should have this book in its collection. Besides a story you cannot put down, the themes included of what absolute power does to a person, what fear does, and how heroism can be forged in the most dire circumstances, are inspiring. The illustrations are perfect.

Patricia is an amazing author who tells it like it is or was. She makes the pages come alive by connecting to the readers lives and surroundings. January Sparrow is just another one of her amazing picture books that share about the struggles African Americans lived through and should not have had to. I dare you to read it without a tissue near by. I have yet to read one of her books without a tissue box on my lap.

I was initially attracted to this book. It combines substantial text and pictures. It seemed to be a compelling story that was a little different than the usual Underground Railway books. However, the story took place in 1847 at a time when sparrows had not yet been introduced in the United States. Thus the central image in the story was totally inaccurate. That immediately sent me to the bibliography to find that there was none. Was this story based on something that actually happened or like the carved sparrow a total invention?

The most damning historical inaccuracy occurs on the next to the last page of the text (the pages aren't nunmbered). The author writes "But in 1860 Abraham Lincoln was elected president and in the middle of the war between the North and the South--the Civil War--he gave all slaves their freedom." The Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 only freed the slaves in rebellious states. It was the 13th Amendment that freed all the slaves.

The book was written in modified dialect from slaves narratives. This would have been great if the author has provided a glossary. I looked up 'windalight' and couldn't find it anywhere.

Another Patricia Polacco heartwarming story from history. This is a beautifully written and illustrated version of what runaway slaves may have faced, and the fears, sorrows, and joys they experienced together to find freedom.

I teach 4th and 5th grade and I use this book all the time in my class. The pictures and story from the beginning rope the kids in. I would say that 3rd grade would be as low as you could possibly go with this book (if that, due to some graphic pictures), but I'd use it all the way through high school. If you are interested at all in teaching about social justice, this book is a must. This is my new favorite book for my teacher library. Yes, #1.

Patricia Polacco tells a beautiful fact-based story of a family trying to stay together and escape the horrors of slavery. How fortunate we are to have her tell the story in a such a beautiful way. This precious story would have gone untold if it weren't for Patricia Polacco. Pink and Say by Polacco is also an excellent read.