White, Becky. 2011. Betsy Ross. Illus Megan Lloyd. NY: Holiday House. ISBN: 9780823419081.
BOOK REVIEW
You open and read. Read, read. You grin. Grin, grin. Becky White's simple rhyming poem is an excellent book on a not-so-common story: the story of Betsy Ross sewing the first American flag. White captures the method of creating the flag with snip, snip and a rib, rib and straight to indigo dye drip, dripping. Those who are familiar with the American flag will soon enough know what Betsy is sewing toward the end of the book. Lloyd's quilted illustrations are wonderfully fitting. Using fabric and embroidery floss every image is handmade and matches the clean poem. End notes from the author and illustrator are found in the back with the instructions on how to cut a star from fabric the way Betsy Ross would have done. A title to include in any collection, but especially for a Fourth of July collection that needs a boost in great story books for young readers. All in all, a perfect book.
CONNECTIONS
- Provide scraps of fabric and have the children try making their own Betsy Ross star.
- For older children, have them sew their own flag out of scraps of fabric by hand.
- For a poetry break, read this book!
Great blog! Thanks for becoming a follower of my blog, Wildly Read. I'm so glad I discovered this one! I just sent it on to a couple children's librarian friends of mine. I wish I had known about your blog when I was managing the children's department of an independent bookstore for 3 years - I was always looking for storytime songs and craft suggestions. Looking forward to reading more of your work!
ReplyDeleteHi! Thank you for visiting my blog and sharing it with your friends! I just started adding my best storytimes to the blog in addition to the reviews and poetry breaks I had been doing for a few years. I'm quite excited! I explored your blog earlier this morning and enjoyed what I found so far. It's fun to read a person's thoughts about Children's Lit through a none Children's Librarians eyes! I'm looking forward to reading more. Hope you'll come back and visit mine once in a while! :-)
ReplyDelete