Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Book talk: Unspoken: A Story from the Underground Railroad by Henry Cole



Have you ever felt as if you were being watched?

Our protagonist – whose name we don’t know – is a young girl who works on a farm during the time of the Civil War. She feeds the cow and the chickens, and she does daily farm chores: cleaning, gathering food, helping her family.

She has a busy but quiet life. She sees Confederate soldiers riding by on their horses one day: the war is going on, but she and her family have food and their health and one another.

But she’s being watched. When she’s alone in the shed, she can feel an eye trained on her. Whose eye is this? Who would hide behind picked corn stalks? And why is this person in her family’s shed?

There are no words in this book, but this is a powerful story called Unspoken: A Story from the Underground Railroad by Henry Cole.

Unspoken: A Story from the Underground Railroad by Henry Cole. Unpaged, wordless. Scholastic: New York, 2012. Booktalk to K-3. Would work especially well for students learning about the Civil War. 2012 New York Times Best Illustrated Children's Books Selection; 2012 Parents' Choice Award for Picture Books Winner.




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