In the Hammock Reading

1.     Bibliography Bartoletti, Susan Campbell. They Called Themselves the K.K.K.: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group . Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014. ISBN: 978-0544225824 2.     Plot Summary  Bartoletti explains where the K.K.K. originated, how it commenced, who started it, and the bitter feelings of the South that gave way to the horrible acts of the “American Terrorist Group”. Although this book tells the tale of an extremely hard-to-swallow time in history, readers will ultimately come to see Bartoletti's purpose in writing this book. Bartoletti wishes to understand "why?", to give a memorial to the victims of the K.K.K., and to provide hope to tomorrow for more kindness, love, tolerance, and acceptance. 3.     Critical Analysis Accuracy: Bartoletti receives praise (and rightly so) from multiple sources for her well-documented research, sources, travel, and experiences that molded and shaped this book. Bartoletti explains that informatio

1.     Bibliography Jenkins, Steve. Hottest, Coldest, Highest, Deepest. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1998. ISBN: 978-0618494880 2.     Plot Summary This short relatively simple nonfiction book gives several fascinating facts about the earth and its superlatives. Readers will learn where the hottest spot on the earth is, where the deepest spot of the ocean is, and where the highest peak in the world is. 3.     Critical Analysis Accuracy: Jenkins does not include a list of sources in his picture children's book. He does, however, include excerpts of maps in each page and a more extensive map at the end of the book showing where each location resides in the world. Jenkins also includes little graphics of information for reference. For example, readers can see how tall the highest mountain is in relation to The Empire State Building. Organization: Each page contains a superlative (for example the highest spot on the earth) a brief blurb explaining the location

1.     Bibliography Fleming, Candace. The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion, and the Fall of Imperial Russia . New York: Schwartz & Wade Books, 2014. ISBN: 978-0375867828 2.     Plot Summary Flemming tells the fascinating tale of the fall of Russia and the circumstances leading up to the mysterious fall and end of Tsar Nicholas and his family and the rise of Communist Russia   3.     Critical Analysis Fleming does a phenomenal job of telling the multifaceted story of Tsar Nicholas and his wife Alexandra and their four daughters Olga, Tatiana, Marie, Anastasia and treasured son Alexei. Although the story of pre-World War I Russia and the birth of communism could read as boring or dry, Flemings writings are anything but dry. The Family Romanov reads as a storybook unfolding before the reader’s eyes. Her use of first-hand accounts, dialogue, pictures, and historical information make this an incredibly gripping read.  Accuracy: Fleming includes a multitude of family phot

1.     Bibliography Woodson, Jacqueline. Brown girl dreaming . Waterville, ME: Thorndike Press, a part of Gale, a Cengage Company, 2017. ISBN: 978-0147515827 2.     Plot Summary In Brown Girl Dreaming Jacqueline Woodson gives the reader an intimate look into her childhood and her life and experiences growing up in Ohio, South Carolina, and New York. These beautiful stories are crafted and told eloquently through verse. 3.     Critical Analysis Jacqueline Woodson's Brown Girl Dreaming is a novel in verse told entirely from the perspective of the author as a young child. Woodson has done a phenomenal job of entering her mindset from the past, and she conveys her memories, emotions, and experiences as a small child. Some of Woodson's poems are quite long, and some are quite short. Regardless, each poem is an incredibly vital piece of her life puzzle. Some of her poems are written in four-line stanzas, some are free verse, and a haiku even makes an appearance.    Woodson

1.     Bibliography Grimes, Nikki. One last word : wisdom from the harlem renaissance . New York, NY: Bloomsbury USA, 2017. ISBN: 978-1619635548 2.     Plot Summary Written in the “Golden Shovel” form, Nikki Grimes shares an anthology of poems embodying stories, experiences, and “wisdom from the Harlem Renaissance”. 3.     Critical Analysis Nikki Grimes writes her anthology One Last Word ever so cleverly using the "Golden Shovel" form. Grimes includes her inspiration poem and she bolds out a line or stanza as her inspiration. Grimes takes every word of the line, stanza or in some cases the entire poem and puts the words separately in the right margin, one on each line. Then, she crafts a new poem incorporating the words. The effect is essentially that the theme of her inspiration poems bleeds into her writing, but at the same time, she organizes stories and experiences from African Americans. Through her powerful use of emotion, Grimes tugs at the heartstrings of rea

1.     Bibliography Engle, Margarita. The firefly letters: a suffragette’s journey to cuba . New York, NY: Henry Holt and Company, LLC, 2010. ISBN: 978-1250110961 2.     Plot Summary This novel in verse recounts the true to life tale of Frederika Bremer and her visit to Cuba. While visiting, she meets a slave girl named Cecilia. Engle shares this insightful story from the perspective of three female characters; Frederika, Cecilia, and Elena. 3.     Critical Analysis The Firefly Letters is a novel in free verse written from the perspective of the three female characters. Margarita Engle gives the reader an inside look into Cuba, and she artfully shares the story of the slave girl Cecilia. Engle keeps her stanzas and rhythm of her poetry short, and this helps convey the brutal raw nature of life as a slave Cuba. In the first page of the story, the reader shockingly finds out that Cecilia the African girl living as a slave in Cuba was sold by her father “for a stolen cow.” Engl