The Keeping Quilt by Patricia Polacco

Polacco, Patricia. The Keeping Quilt. New York: Aladdin, 2001.

Patricia Polacco is a very known for her stories of her family. Through her words, she writes about different aspects of her life. In The Keeping Quilt, Polacco writes about her family tree.

From her Great Gramma to her first daughter, Polacco creates a story that not only explains some aspects of the Jewish religion, but of her family heritage as well. The story begins with a younger version of Great Gramma and how she came to America. The story continues through Polacco’s Grandma and then her mother. With each story Polacco explains the wedding traditions and little bits about daily life for a young Jewish woman growing up in America. Once it finally is Polacco’s turn, she explains how in her wedding they had all of the same traditions but this time everyone celebrated together.

The Keeping Quilt has won the Sydney Taylor award. Not only does this book show a family in positive light, but is also is a very good book that shows the Jewish religion in a positive light, as well. It also a good choice of a piece of diverse literature. The book is also illustrated by Patricia Polacco which makes the entire book created by an insider author. Overall, a good book that can be used for all ages.

Review: Thank You, Mr. Falker

Polacco, Patricia. Thank You, Mr. Falker. New York: Philomel Books, 1998.

Thank You, Mr. Falker is a wonderful book about Trisha, who is motivated and excited to finally start school and learn to read. However, she realizes fairly quickly that this task is shaping up to be a bit more difficult than the other students make it look. When she tries to read words out loud, the texts gets all jumbled up in her brain and she cannot form complete words. Other students begin to make fun of her attempts and she becomes more aware that she is not progressing while the other students are surpassing reading expectations. In the book, it states that “Trisha began to feel ‘different.’ She began to feel dumb.” Trisha becomes more frustrated when she realizes that the same problem happens when she tries to do math as well. To make matters worse, other students call her “baby” and “dumb,” which leads Trisha to spend her free time in hiding, crying. Soon she starts to find reasons to avoid going to school at all… Until Mr. Falker, her fifth grade teacher realizes what she is up against and spends his extra time schooling Trisha on the basics of reading. Over a period of time, progress was made until Trisha could finally read a full paragraph. In the epilogue, Trisha encounters Mr. Falker again and when he asks what she is doing now, she tells him that she is now a children’s book author.

What is very important to know about this book is that it is an autobiography of Patricia Polacco herself, which makes her an insider to the learning disabilities community. She wrote this book because it was a tale she knew best and wanted to show how one teacher “unlocked the door and pulled [her] into the light.”

I like this book because it describes the experiences she went through and puts it into context for the uninformed reader, like how instead of words looking like a string of letters, they look like a bunch of fuzzy squiggles that are illegible. This story is accurate and authentic because it is based on her experiences. She defers the stereotype that students with learning disabilities are stupid, although according to her, many people assume. I would definitely use this book in my classroom in the future as it is very relatable and can impact those with and without learning disabilities.

Book Review: PINK and SAY

Polacco, Patricia. PINK and SAY. New York: Philomel Books, 1994.

PINK and SAY is the story of Sheldon Curtis (Say) and Pinkus Aylee (Pink) who both fought together for the Union somewhere in Georgia during the Civil War Period. The story of these two boys journey through the war has been passed from great-grandfather to grandmother, to son, and finally to the author-artist herself, Patricia Polacco. The two boys lost their Union troops so they found themselves taking rest at Moe Moe Bay’s, Pink’s mother’s home, to recuperate before regaining their search for their lost Union troops. Their stay was cut short as the Confederate troops rode in killing Moe Moe Bay and imprisoning the two boys in Andersonville. The end of the story recaps the true environment of a prison during the war period along with summing up the long lived life of Say after the war and the early death of Pink shortly after entering the prison. The story of the interracial friendship lives on through the tellings of those who shared Sheldon Curtis’ life, never forgetting Pinkus Aylee.

Polacco puts forth great effort in giving the text authentic African American dialect that can be seen during this time period in Georgia. The story creates a great portrayal of interracial relationships between soldiers of this time period. The idea of two relationships forming from two people going through similar battles is displayed clearly, and readers are able to gain a sense of belonging together among different racial backgrounds. The illustrations aide the relationships in portraying powerful depictions of Pink and Say grabbing hands as they are pulled apart. She does a fabulous job of representing the relationships that were to come in the future and gives her readers hope of interracial lasting relationships. I would recommend this book not only to African American families but also to many other families looking to broaden their multicultural experiences.

Thank You, Mr. Falker

Polacco, Patricia. Thank You, Mr. Falker. Philomel Books: New York, 1998.

Patricia Polacco writes a picture book about real struggles that occurred during her childhood. In Thank you, Mr. Falker, a young girl, Trisha, feels like she is “dumb” because she cannot read like the other students. However with the help of a devoted teacher, Trisha finally has success in the classroom and learns to read.

In the beginning of the book Trisha receives a special gift from her grandfather, the knowledge to know the reading is sweet. After learning this, Trisha is very excited that she is going to learn to read. However, she quickly discovers that she cannot learn to read and recognize the letters like the other students in her class. Trisha moves from Michigan to California and hopes that at her new school she will not be teased for not knowing how to read. However, the teasing only gets worse. It is not until a caring, and affectionate teacher helps Trisha learn to recognize the letters and eventually read successfully.

After reading Thank You, Mr. Falker, I think it has became one of my favorite pieces of children’s literature. In such a short encouraging story there are many real life aspects for students to relate to as well as offering the notion that success can be reached. The real problems that are addressed in this book are issues that many students may face. Such as losing family members, trouble reading, bullying, moving, resource room help, achieving success. However, for me one of the most surprising and wonderful aspects of this book is the final page of the story when Polacco admits that Trisha is actually her and that great teachers like Mr. Falker really do exist. This piece of the text offers hopes to struggling students. Also, for students who do not have trouble reading or who bully, it teaches them a lesson about acceptance and struggles that other students must have the strength to overcome. I believe that awareness, understanding, and acceptance are promoted in this book for people with learning disabilities. According to the article, “Teaching Students About Learning Disabilities Through Children’s Literature” by Prater, Dyches, and Johnstun, Polacco’s book is a high quality piece of literature acceptance of learning disabilities is accepted. It is also a high quality piece of literature because it has strong literary features (characterization, setting, plot, point of view, etc) as well as learning disabilities or portrayed very positively.

I learned quite a bit about Polacco on her website (http://www.patriciapolacco.com/author/bio/bio.html). Besides the fact that she is from Michigan and grew up on a farm (just like Trisha), she did not read until the age of 14 and was diagnosed with dyslexia. Since Polacco has a learning disability herself, this piece of literature can be called an “insider” point of view.