Teachable Texts

140. When the Shadbush Blooms by Carla Messinger with Susan Katz

December 13, 2009 at 4:27 pm Leave a comment

Retell: A Lenape Indian girl describes how her family has worked, played and celebrated throughout the seasons and throughout the generations.

Topics: Lenni Lenape, generations, past, present, cycles, family, seasons, farming, nature

Units of Study: Nonfiction, Content Area, Memoir

Tribes: mutual respect

Reading Skills: monitoring for sense, interpretation, synthesis

My Thoughts: This is a great text to support a Social Studies unit on the Lenni Lenape.  In this book, the illustrations really tell the story and support interpretation work.  The narration is illustrated on the right hand pages:  A modern Lenape family farms, weatherizes their house to prepare for winter, fishes for shad, and plays games in the snow.  On the left hand pages, a Lenape family from the past do the same activities.

Entry filed under: Female Authors, nonfiction, Picture Books. Tags: content-area, cycles, family, farming, generations, interpretation, Lenni Lenape, memoir, monitoring for sense, mutual respect, nature, nonfiction, past, present, seasons, synthesis.