Customer Reviews

The Mystery of the Alamo Ghost (Real Kids, Real Places)

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

 

 

I have a ten year old son who is homeschooled. It was his love of this book on which I'm basing my five star rating. Recently we read this book as a read aloud. We use the Carol Marsh mysteries as a big part of theme units that we do.

My son enjoys first looking at the pictures of the children in the introduction, and reading about who they are in real life.

We then copy the scavenger hunt in the back of the book, so that he can keep check off the items as the appear in the book.

These are excellent books for a read aloud in a learning situation, but the language is appropriate and the chapters are short enough for children to read on their own.

I enjoyed Christina's attitude towards the topic of Davy Crockett and the Alamo - "That's boy stuff!" she declared, but it wasn't soon until she was enjoying the story too.

The short Spanish language glossary with common Spanish words that was in the back of this book was particularly helpful and fun.

These books are not first class mystery books from an adult standpoint, but that is not what is important - what matters is that these stories are close enough to reality, and involve enough children's interests, that the child enjoys the book and learns a lot about Texas history along the way.

For a good unit study, provide a copy of a Texas map (There's one in the book!), and pair this book with an appropriate biography book for kids on Davy Crockett. We also watched "Dear America: A Line in the Sand:The Alamo Diary of Lucinda Lawrence Gonzales, Texas, 1836."

There are not many novels out there regarding Texas history, it was a nice change as a teacher to be able to mix readng and social studies. The story was well written and my ESL students are truly ejoying the novel. Thank you.

I am writing this review based on the words of my 4th grade son. He was really excited to get this book as he thought that it was going to be a great story. His grandparents live in TX and he thought that it would be a lot of fun to read a book that takes place where they live.

He breezed through the book and then was SOOOO disappointed at the ending. He said that just as the book was getting more exciting, it just ended. He was really wishing that the author could have solved the mystery of the boy ghost.

Hope that our next book is a better one. He said that he would NOT recommend this book to a friend.