Two yellow bulldozers are waiting outside the walls of Emerson Elementary School. Their job is to tear the hallways and memories apart to make room for a supermarket. This is a food desert and the community has decided they need a place to buy their food more than they need the school that has been woven into their lives for years.
Ms. Hill's fifth graders, eighteen of them, have been assigned to write in their journals. Through their words we meet each of them and have a chance to walk in their shoes and see what their story is. From the Queen Bee to the class president to the boy on the Asperberger's spectrum and on and on, we see the world through their unique point of view. No two are alike. Each is unique.
The story is told through all different types of poems from the concrete to the haiku. It makes for a pageturner and it delivers insightful characters and experiences in the tautest of forms.
Who are these eighteen different people? How are their lives different? How are they the same? What are they going through at home and at school? If they work together, can they stop the bulldozers from changing their world?
Filled with heart and fun and determination this is the perfect book to read to a class of fifth graders to invite them into their own story and to show them how wonderfully different the lives of those so close by can be.
Funny, poignant, and authentic.
978-0-553-52137-5 Ages 9-12 256 pages
Recommended by: Barb Langridge, abookandahug.com